re justified in
this instance, as they had been in a great many others.

The greetings between the two leaders were brief and stern, and the
first question of old Two Knives was,

"Pale-faces begin fight. What for shoot Lipans?"

"Big lie. Lipans take our camp. Tie up our men. Steal our horses.
Ride out in war-paint. Pale-faces kill them all."

The chief understood what sort of men he had to deal with, but his
pride rebelled.

"All right. We kill prisoners right away. Keep camp. Keep horse.
Kill all pale-faces."

"We won't leave enough of you for the Apaches to bury. There's a big
band of them coming. Eat you all up."

"The Lipans are warriors. The Apaches are small dogs. We are not
afraid of them."

"You'd better be! If you had us to help you, now, you might whip them.
There won't be so many of you by the time they get here. Pale-faces
are good friends. Bad enemies. Shoot straight. Kill a heap."

Captain Skinner saw that his "talk" was making a deep impression, but
the only comment of the chief was a deep, guttural "Ugh!" and the
Captain added,

"Suppose you make peace? Say have fight enough. Not kill any more.
Turn and whip Apaches. We help."

"What about camp, wagon, horse, mule, blanket? All kind of plunder."

"Make a divide. We'll help ourselves when we take the Apache ponies.
You keep one wagon. We keep one. Same way with horses and
mules--divide 'em even. You give up prisoners right away. Give 'em
their rifles, and pistols, and knives. Give back all you took from
them."

"Ugh! Good! Fight Apaches. Then pale-faces take care of themselves.
Give them one day after fight."

That was the sort of treaty that was made, and it saved the lives of
Bill and his mates for that day at least.

It was all Captain Skinner could have expected, but the faces of the
miners were sober enough over it.

"Got to help fight Apaches, boys."

"And lose one wagon, and only have a day's start afterward."

"One wagon's nothing, boys. All we care much for is in the wagon we'll
choose to keep. As to the rest of it, we'll see about that. Did any
of you get hurt besides Smith and Gorham?"

"Not a man. But there's two less to divide with if we ever git safe
into Mexico."

The chief had at once ridden back to announce the result to his braves,
and they, too, received it with a sullen approval which was full of
bitter thoughts of what they would do to those pale-faces after the
Apaches s