Smiling pleasantly, Shoz-Dijiji looked at the horse and then at the riata approvingly.
“You belong Crawford’s outfit?” inquired the soldier.
“Me no sabe,” said Shoz-Dijiji. He picked up the riata and examined it. “Mucho bueno!” he exclaimed.
“You bet,” agreed the cavalryman. “Damn fine rope.”
The Apache examined the riata minutely, passing it through his hands, and at the same time walking toward the horse slowly. The riata, a braided hair “macarthy,” was indeed a fine specimen, some sixty feet in length, of which the soldier was pardonably proud, a fact which threw him off his guard in the face of the Indian’s clever simulation of interest and approval.
When Shoz-Dijiji reached the end of the rope which was about the horse’s neck he patted the animal admiringly and turned to the soldier, smiling enthusiastically. “Mucho bueno,” he said, nodding toward the horse.
“You bet,” said the trooper. “Damn fine horse.”
With his back toward the white man, Shoz-Dijiji drew his knife and quickly severed the rope, holding the two ends concealed in his left hand. “Mucho bueno,” he repeated, turning again toward the soldier, and then, suddenly and with seeming excitement, he pointed up the hill back of the trooper. “Apache on dahl!” he shouted—“The Apaches are coming!”
Quite naturally, under the circumstances, the soldier turned away to look in the direction from which the savage enemy was supposed to be swooping upon him, and as he did so the Apache Devil vaulted into the saddle and was away.
The great bowlders strewing the floor of the canyon afforded him an instant screen and though the soldier was soon firing at him with his pistol he offered but a momentary and fleeting target before he was out of range, carrying away with him the cavalryman’s carbine, which swung in its boot beneath the off stirrup of the trooper’s McClellan.