e quick eyes of Two Arrows, but he was
learning fast, and it was easy to find a better crossing. Once over, he
felt that the forest was itself a sort of protection, and there came a
great thrill all over him at the thought of riding out from under it.
What if the Apaches should be already there, and what if they had found
the camp and destroyed it?

"They haven't done that," said Sile, "unless they managed to take it by
surprise. Guess they couldn't do that in broad daylight. Our men are all
old hands, and Yellow Pine keeps his eyes about him. I'll get in a good
while before dark--that is, if I make out to get in. I wish there was
good cover all the way."

He drew rein for a moment under the last line of trees, and he looked
earnestly in all directions, but even his spy-glass could not reveal to
him a sign of danger. He had never seen anything more absolutely quiet
and peaceful than was that stretch of open valley, with its grass and
its bushes, and its clusters of grand old trees. It encouraged him a
good deal to see a buck and two does feeding within a quarter of a mile
of him, and he at once rode watchfully onward. His horse was beginning
to show signs of hard riding, and he noted it regretfully. There might
yet be a race to run, for all he knew.

There was to be something very different from a race, and the notice of
it came to him very suddenly. Just as he rode out through a patch of
willows in a long hollow, walking his horse because of their being in
his way a little, his heart seemed to stop beating and stand still.
Then it beat again, and like a trip-hammer, for a moment. The bridle
fell from his hand, and he made ready his rifle as if by an instinctive
movement.

Right before him and hardly a hundred yards away, on the rising ground,
sat an Indian brave, in his war-paint, upon a very fine looking horse,
and Sile was sure at a glance that he could not be one of his Nez Perce
friends. They had no such horses as that among all that he and Two
Arrows had found for them. The warrior was looking in the opposite
direction at the instant, but he was also wheeling his horse, and in a
second or so more he caught sight of Sile. He had a lance, but it was
slung behind him, and in his hands was as good a repeating-rifle as
Sile's own, and he raised it like a flash.

It was as if he lifted two, for Sile's rifle also came up with precisely
the same quick, ready-handed motion.

It was an awful moment for Sile. He had n