He dozed, he was certain, not more than five minutes; or perhaps ten. Then he awakened with a sudden start. Something had told him to awaken. He sat up and looked to see that the sheep were all right. He could not see one animal, but he heard the tinkle, tinkle. He twisted about to find the old bell-wether—and he gazed full into the grinning face of an Apache boy!
The Apache boy, who appeared to be fourteen or fifteen years old, was not more than five yards from him—standing there beside a giant cactus, naked except for a red cloth band about his forehead, and a whitish cotton girdle about his middle, with the broad ends hanging down before and behind, and regular Apache moccasins reaching like leggins half way up his thighs for protection against the brush: standing there, grinning, in his left hand a bow, in his right the wether’s bell!
He had been tinkling that bell! And a smart trick this was, too: to sneak up on the wether, get the bell, and ring it to fool the herder while other Apaches drove away the sheep!
For an instant Jimmie stared perfectly paralyzed with astonishment. He could not believe his eyes. Instead of a staid old tame sheep, here was a mischievous young wild Apache! Then, trying to utter a shout, up he sprang, to run. On the moment he heard a sharp swish, the noose of an Apache’s rawhide rope whipped about his shoulders, and right in mid-step he was jerked backward so violently, head over heels, that he had no time or breath for yelling a word.
Barely had he landed topsy turvy in the brush when a heavy body rushed for him, a supple dark hand was clapped firmly over his mouth, and hauled upright he was half dragged, half carried, through the mesquites and the cactuses and around the slope of the hill.
Now he was flung, limp and dazed, aboard a pony, his captor mounted into the saddle behind him, and away they tore, while the brush beneath reeled by under Jimmie’s swimming eyes.
This was a fast ride until the sheep were overtaken. There they were, almost the whole flock, being forced hotly onward by Apaches afoot and ahorse, with other Apaches guarding the flanks. It looked like a war party returning with plunder from Mexico. The bands about the foreheads, the round rawhide helmets that some wore, the thigh moccasins, the guns, bows, lances and clubs, proved that they were a war party; and they had a lot of loose horses and mules besides the Pete Kitchen sheep.
Jimmie sighted another captive—a Mexican boy, older than he, fastened upon a yellow mule led by an Apache horseman.
A broad-shouldered, finely built Indian wearing an Apache helmet with feathers sticking up from it, and riding a white horse, evidently was the chief in command.