recently
used in tying up something. He could make very little out of them; but
he noticed the marks of horse's feet going up and out of the forest.

"Signs are getting pretty thick. Hullo! An arrow! Cut in two, and
blood on it. Bill, isn't this the spot?"

"This 'ere's the very place, Cap. We came awful nigh havin' a fight
right yer."

"Glad you made out not to have any. Did those two white men and the
Indians ride away in company?"

"Wal, no. The redskins rid away first, and the two fellers promised to
foller 'em after a while. Then I reckon they cut off into the timber.
'Peared like they must ha' been huntin'."

"Most likely they were; and waiting for us to get away, so they could
go back to their mine. Boys, I'm afraid our claim there won't be worth
a great deal by the time we get back."

"We'll take care of that when we come, Cap. They said they'd take thar
chances. We'll jest take ours; that's all."

Slower, more and more cautiously, the mining train again moved forward,
until, from under the last of the pine-trees, Captain Skinner could
look out upon the valley and see that it was empty.

How would he and his men have felt if they could have known that at
that very minute Murray was chipping away with his chisel at his
inscriptions upon the central monument of the great Buckhorn Mine?

"Not a redskin in sight," he remarked. "If there were any there this
morning they've moved on. They're always on the move. Glad of it.
We'll go straight on down. There must be plenty of ways out of a
valley like that."

No doubt of it; but the first business of those wanderers, after they
reached the spring and unhitched their mule-teams, was to carefully
examine every hoof-mark and foot-print they could find.

The fact that there had been lodges there was proof that the Apaches
were not a war-party, but there was plenty of evidence that they were
numerous enough to be dangerous.

"Glad Bill didn't pick a quarrel with such a band as that," grumbled
Captain Skinner. "But how did he happen to show so much sense? I
never suspected him of it."

That was not very complimentary to Bill, and it was evident that the
Captain's opinion of him had not changed.

"Some kind of an accident," he said. "Nobody need waste any time
looking out for another one just like it."

It was getting late in the day, and a better place for a camp could not
have been found.

"This'll do for to-night, won't it, Cap?" aske