"I don't like killings," returned Tad briefly. He bent over the Indian, finding that the latter had been only knocked out.
"We'd better take the redskin back to camp, hadn't we?" queried Tad, and Jim silently helped. In camp, the Indian was bound hand and foot. The camp fire was lighted and Tad went to work to resuscitate the red man.
At last the camp's prisoner was revived.
"Now, let's ask him about the thieveries that have been going on," suggested Ned Rector.
"Humph!" grinned Dad. "If you think you can make an Indian talk when he has been caught red-handed, then you try it."
Not a word would the Indian say. He even refused to look at his questioners, but lay on the ground, stolidly indifferent.
"He's a prowling Navajo," explained Nance. "You may be sure this is the fellow, Brown's 'spirit,' behind all our troubles. He's the chap who stole Brown's rifle, who raided this camp, who set the lion free and who poisoned my dogs—-so they wouldn't give warning."
"But why should he want to turn the lion loose?" Tad wanted to know.
"Because the Navajo Indians hold the mountain lion as sacred. The Navajo believes that his ancestors' spirits have taken refuge in the bodies of the mountain lions."
"I believe there must be a strong strain of mountain lion in this fellow, by the way he fought me," grimaced Tad.