estionings drew together a knot of squaws and children, two or three
of whom were ready to point toward the north-eastern slope of the
valley, where it crept up through the pine-forest into the mountains,
and tell him he would have to hunt in that direction.

He was ready for it, of course; but he reined in his mustang in front
of his father long enough to tell him the cause of the delay.

"Bring them back. They are as wild as rabbits. They will lose their
scalps some day."

The chief did not smile when he said that. He was beginning to feel
uneasy about the position of his affairs, and he could hardly have told
why. He said to himself, "Bad medicine. Can't see him. Great chief
smell him."

And then he gave sharp orders to his young braves to have all the
ponies caught and brought in from the pastures below, and to the squaws
to have all their packs ready and their lodges taken down.

"Big talk come," he said again to himself. "Maybe big fight. Don't
know. Must be ready. Somebody catch the great chief asleep if he
doesn't look out."

Nobody had ever done that yet, for Many Bears had even a greater name
for his cunning than for his fighting.

Red Wolf was well mounted, and he darted away at full speed. His
father was not a man to forgive a slow messenger any more than a slow
cook.

"I understand," he muttered. "Squaws not stay in valley. Go among
trees and rocks. Bears catch 'em some day. Eat 'em all up. Not
afraid of anything."

So he was really anxious about them, and afraid they would run into
danger?

Certainly.

The red man's family affection does not always show itself in the same
way with ours, but there is plenty of it. All the more in the case of
a young brave like Red Wolf, with every reason to be proud as well as
fond of his sister.

And of Rita?

He was thinking of her now, and wondering if she had learned anything
more about the cavalry from her talking leaves.

It was, for all the world, just as if he had been a young white man
from "one of the first families." He galloped onward, keenly eying the
fringes of the forest and the broken bases of the ledges, until he came
to the broad opening below the gap, and here he suddenly stopped and
sprung to the ground at a place where the green sod was soft and deeply
marked with the prints of horses' hoofs.

"The blue-coat horsemen came out into the valley here. Their tracks
are old. Ugh! Those are fresh. Ni-ha-be and Rita."