r. "I fetched down an antelope a couple
of hours ago, and as I was expectin' you, I cooked enough of it for
both."

"You had to cook his hoofs and all to do that; but why don't you spread
the dining table?"

Little ceremony was indulged in at such a time. The toasting meat,
brown, crisp and juicy, was served in two equal portions, each of
immense size, and then, with no culinary articles but their keen hunting
knives, and their incisors, almost as keen, they went at the business
with the gusto of famishing wolves. Meanwhile the two mustangs were
feasting upon the rich grass which grew abundantly about them, and so
all members of the party were enjoying themselves to the fullest extent.

The two hunters scarcely spoke while this piece of mastication was going
on. They understood each other so well that there was no necessity of
any hurry in the way of inquiry or conversation. When at last they had
filled themselves to repletion, they drew their fingers through their
bushy hair, using the latter by way of napkins, and then, after a good
long draught from the brook running near at hand, lit their pipes and
leaned back in the very acme of bliss.

"How soon shall we start?" asked Tom.

"In a couple of hours," was the reply.

"Think the Apaches are through by this time?"

"No doubt of it."

If the hunters seemed to exhibit indifference in referring to the
terrible occurrence, it was not because they felt thus; but the lives
which they led had accustomed them to such frightful experiences.

"S'pose they've spared the younker?"

"Guess they have."

The conclusion to which both came was that the Apaches were incited to
this attack more by the desire to get possession of the lad than by
anything else, in view of the intense hatred with which Colonel Chadmund
was viewed by the hostile Indians of the Southwest. He had been
stationed over two years at Fort Havens, during which his administration
had been marked by extreme vigor, and he had retaliated upon the Apaches
especially in the severest way for many outrages committed by them.

"Yas, they've gone for that little younker," added Dick Morris, after
the discussion had been continued for some time. "Of course they haven't
killed him; for that would have sp'iled their game. The colonel, finding
what they'd done, would come down on 'em harder than ever, and you kin
make up your mind they'd get the worst of the bargain before he was
through with 'em; but as long as th