With the going of the sun Applehead and Lite, sitting out their second guard on the pinnacle, discussed seriously the desperate idea of going in the night to the nearest Navajo ranch and helping themselves to what horses they could find about the place. The biggest obstacle was their absolute ignorance of where the nearest ranch lay. Not, surelj, that half-day's ride back towards Albuquerque, where they had seen but one pony and that a poor specimen of horseflesh. Another obstacle would be the dogs, which could be quieted only with bullets.
' We might git hold of something to ride,' Applehead stated glumly, ' an' then agin the chances is we wouldn't git nothin' more'n a scrap on our 208
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hands. 7 N' I'm tellin' yuh right now, Lite, I ain't hankerin' fer no fuss till I git a hoss under me.'
' Me either,' Lite testified succinctly. ' Say, is that something coming, away up that draw the camp's in ? Seems to me I saw something pass that line of lava, about half a mile over.'
Applehead stood up and peered into the half darkness. In a couple of minutes he said: ' Ye better git down an' tell the boys t' be on the watch, Lite. They can't see no hat-wavin' this time uh day. They's somethin' movin' up to-wards camp, but what er who they be I can't make out in the dark. Tell Luck —'
' What's the matter with us both going ? ' Lite asked, cupping his hands around his eyes that he might see better. ' It's getting too dark to do any good up here —'
' Well, I calc'late mebby yore right,' Applehead admitted, and began to pick his way down over the rocks. ' Ef them's Injuns, the bigger we stack up in camp the better. If it's Ramon 'n' his bunch, I want t' git m' hands on 'im.'
He must have turned the matter over pretty thoroughly in his mind, for when the two reached 209
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camp he had his ideas fixed and his plans all perfected. He told Luck that somebody was working down the draw in the dark, and that it looked like a Navvy trick; and that they had better be ready for them, because they weren't coming just to pass the time of day —' now I'm tellin' ye! '
The nerves of the Happy Family were raw enough by now to welcome anything that promised action; even an Indian fight would not be so much a disaster as a novel way of breaking the monotony. Applehead, with the experience gathered in the old days when he was a young fellow with a freighting outfit and old Geronimo was terrorizing all this country, sent them back in compact half circle just within the shelter of the trees and several rods away from their campfire and the waterhole. There, lying crouched behind their saddles with their rifles across the seat-sides and with ammunition belts full of cartridges, they waited for whatever might be coming in the dark.
' It's horses,' Pink exclaimed under his breath, as faint sounds came down the draw. ' Maybe —'
' Horses — and an Injun laying along the back of every one, most likely,' Applehead returned 210
grimly. ' An old jSTavvy trick, that is — don't let 'em fool ye, boys! You jest wait, 'n' I'll tell ye when t' shoot, er whether t' shoot at all. They can't fool me — now I'm tellin' yuh! '
After that they were silent, listening strainedly to the growing sounds of approach. There was the dull, unmistakable click of a hoof striking against a rock, the softer sound of treading on yielding soil. Then a blur of dark objects became visible, moving slowly and steadily toward the camp.
' Aw, it's just horses,' Happy Jack muttered disgustedly.
Applchead stretched a lean leg in his direction and gave Happy Jack a kick. ' They're cun-nin',' he hissed warningly. ' Don't yuh be fooled —'
' That's Johnny in the lead,' Pink whispered excitedly. ' I'd know the way he walks —'
' '1ST' you thought yuh knowed how he jingled his dang bell,' Applehead retorted unkindly. 'Sh-sh-sh —'
Reminded by the taunt of the clever trick that had been played upon them the night before, the Happy Family stiffened again into strained, wait-211
THE HERITAGE OF THE SIOUX
ing silence, their rifles aimed straight at the advancing objects. These, still vague in the first real darkness of early night, moved steadily in a. scattered group behind a leader that was undoubtedly Johnny of the erstwhile tinkling bell. He circled the campfire just without its radius of light, so that they could not tell whether an Indian lay along his back, and headed straight for the waterhole. The others followed him, and not one came into the firelight — a detail which sharpened the suspicions of the men crouched there in the edge of the bushes, and tingled their nerves with the sense of something sinister in the very unconcernedness of the animals.
They splashed into the water-hole and drank thirstily and long. They stood there as though they were luxuriating in the feel of more water than they could drink, and one horse blew the moisture from his nostrils with a sound that made Happy Jack jump.
After a few minutes that seemed an hour to those who waited with fingers crooked upon gun-triggers, the horse that looked vaguely like Johnny turned away from the water-hole and sneezed while 212
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he appeared to be wondering what to do next. He moved slowly toward the packs that were thrown down just where they had been taken from the horses, and began nosing tentatively about.
The others loitered still at the water-hole, save one — the buckskin, by his lighter look in the dark — that came over to Johnny. The two horses nosed the packs. A dull sound of clashing metal came to the ears of the Happy Family.
' Hey! Get outa that grain, doggone your fool hide,' Pink called out impulsively, crawling over his saddle and catching his foot in the stirrup leather so that he came near going headlong.
Applehead yelled something, but Pink had recovered his balance and was running to save the precious horsefeed from waste, and Johnny from foundering. There might have been two Indians on every horse in sight, but Pink was not thinking of that possibility just then.
Johnny whirled guiltily away from the grain bag, licking his lips and blowing dust from his nostrils. Pink went up
