I expected every minute to feel a knife in
my back, but when I didn't get it then I knew they wanted to bring me
in alive, and that made me fight harder. First and last, we rolled and
plunged all the way from the rim-rock down to the canon-bed. Then one
of the Injins sung out:

"Maria!"

And I thought of that renegade Mexican, and what I'd heard bout him,
and that made me fight harder yet.

But after we'd fought down to the canon-bed, and had lost most of our
skin, a half-dozen more fell on me, and in less than no time they had
me tied. Then they picked me up and carried me over to where they'd
built a big fire by the corral.

Uncle Jim stopped with an air of finality, and began lazily to refill
his pipe. From the open mud fireplace he picked a coal. Outside, the
rain, faithful to the prophecy of the wide-ringed sun, beat fitfully
against the roof.

"That was the closest call I ever had," said he at last.

"But, Uncle Jim," we cried in a confused chorus, "how did you get away?
What did the Indians do to you? Who rescued you?"

Uncle Jim chuckled.

"The first man I saw sitting at that fire," said he, "was Lieutenant
Price of the United States Army, and by him was Tom Horn."

"'What's this?' he asks, and Horn talks to the Injins in Apache.

"'They say they've caught Maria,' translates Horn back again.

"'Maria-nothing!' says Lieutenant Price. 'This is Jim Fox. I know him.'"

"So they turned me loose. It seems the troops had driven off the
renegades an hour before."

"And the Indians who caught you, Uncle Jim? You said they were
Indians."

"Were Tonto Basin Apaches," explained the old man--"government scouts
under Tom Horn."

[1] Pronounced "Hoo."

CHAPTER TWO

THE EMIGRANTS

After the rain that had held us holed up at the Double R over one day,
we discussed what we should do next.

"The flats will be too boggy for riding, and anyway the cattle will be
in the high country," the Cattleman summed up the situation. "We'd bog
down the chuck-wagon if we tried to get back to the J. H. But now
after the rain the weather ought to be beautiful. What shall we do?"

"Was you ever in the Jackson country?" asked Uncle Jim. "It's the
wildest part of Arizona. It's a big country and rough, and no one
lives there, and there's lots of deer and mountain lions and bear.
Here's my dogs. We might have a hunt."

"Good!" said we.

We skirmished around and found a condemned army pack saddl