, and
then, swinging on the arc of a great circle, would be back to camp and
settled long before the soldiers could overtake them. Hampered by
orders from the War Department, which, in turn, was molested by the
sentimental friends of the Indians, soldiers never succeeded in taming
the Apache Crook cut off communications and thrashed them so thoroughly
in these same Lava Beds that they never recovered.

In Slim's absence, Buck McKee and his gang had taken possession of
Pinal County. Rustlers and bad men were coming in from Texas and the
Strip. Slim's election for another term was by no means certain. He
did not know this, but if he had, it would not have made any difference
to him. He was after Jack, and, at any cost, would bring him back to
face trial. The rogues of Pinal County seized upon the flight of Jack
as a good excuse to down Slim. The Sheriff was more eager to find Jack
and learn from him that Buck's charge was false than to take him
prisoner. He knew the accusation would not stand full investigation.

Slowly the hours passed until the order for "boots and saddles" was
sounded, and the troops trotted out of the fort gate. Scouts soon
picked up their trail, but that was different from finding the Indians.
Oft-times the troopers would ride into a hastily abandoned camp with
the ashes still warm, but never a sight of a warrior could be had.
Over broad mesas, down narrow mountain trails, and up canons so deep
that the sun never fully penetrated them, the soldiers followed the
renegades.

For a day the trail was lost. Then it was picked up by the print of a
pony's hoof beside a water-hole. But always the line of flight led
toward an Apache spring in the Lava Beds.

Slim and his posse took their commands from the officers of the
pursuers. The cow-punchers gave them much assistance as scouts,
knowing the country, through which the Indians fled. Keeping in touch
with the main command, they rode ahead to protect it from any surprise.
The chief Indian scout got so far ahead at one time in the chase that
he was not seen for two days. Once, by lying flat on his belly,
shading his eyes with his hands, and gazing intently at a mountainside
so far ahead that the soldiers could scarcely discern it, he declared
he had seen the fugitives climb the trail. The feat seemed impossible,
until the second morning after, when the scout pointed out to the
colonel the pony-tracks up the mountainside. The Apache scouts k