the recovery
of the ponies, he had killed a buck and a bear, and was evidently able
to use the weapons of grown-up white braves. He was therefore not a boy
to be snubbed; and, if it had not been for his unfortunate light
complexion, he was almost good-looking. At all events he was disposed to
do his best to be polite, and they were willing to meet him as nearly
half-way as was consistent with dignity and propriety. They were under
the especial care of the judge himself, however, and Na-tee-kah derived
a vast amount of comfort from an occasional look at his very fatherly
and benevolent face. Her obvious respect for Yellow Pine was mingled
with something like fear as yet, and she would not have a word to say to
any of the miners. Horses were furnished to both of them when the camp
broke up for the day's travelling, and no man in the party was more at
home upon one, except that a side-saddle was an invention that they had
never heard of and did not need.

"We'll git to the mine afore night, jedge," said Yellow Pine, when they
halted for their noon luncheon, and the further information he added
stimulated all hands to push forward. Not one sign of peril or even of
human presence, other than their own, did they encounter, and yet the
other human beings of that region were hourly drawing nearer.

The camp of the Apache marauders broke up at sunrise, with a
considerable amount of discontented grumbling. A man familiar with their
dialect, or with only a little of it, could easily have gathered that
they were eager for news which did not come, and for scouts who did not
return. Not all of them, to say the least, would ever again come into
that or any other camp, news or no news. In the absence of any, it was
plainly a due precaution to push forward even farther beyond the
supposed pursuit of the men in blue.

There was a good deal more than a mere supposition about that pursuit,
for Captain Grover and his men were on the trail at as early an hour as
was consistent with a proper care of their horses, and a hearty
breakfast all around. They were a fine looking lot of men, bronzed and
weather-beaten and soldierly. Their uniforms were not exactly in
"parade" condition, but there was nothing slovenly about them, and their
weapons were in excellent order. They had several "led-horses," to make
good the places of any that might become over-wearied, and every animal
in the troop showed signs of careful grooming. A captain, a lieutena