"They are a branch of the Tejunas, who are themselves a branch of the Apaches. The head-quarters of the tribe lie on the east side of Arizona, between the Gila River and the Little Colorado. The Tejunas lie between them and the Colorado; they are just as bad as the Apaches themselves, and both of them are scourges to the northern districts of Mexico."
"What are our Indians?"
"They are a branch of the Genigueh Indians. They live among the hills between Iron Bluff, sixty miles below us, and those hills you see as many miles up. A good many of them hunt during the season on the other side as far east as Aquarius Mountains, in what is known as the Mohave country, but they never go farther south that side than the river Santemaria, for the Tejunas would be down upon them if they caught them in what they consider their country."
"I wish the señor was back," Will said; "though I dare say it is all right, and that, as the Indians haven't made a raid across here for many years, they will not do so now. How would they get across the river?"
"They would swim across, señor. An Indian thinks nothing of swimming a wide river; he simply slips off his horse, and either puts his hands on its back, or more generally holds on by its tail."
"Have these fellows guns?"
"A great many of them have. They capture them from the Mexicans, or, in peaceable times, trade skins or their blankets or their Indian trumpery for them. It is against the law to sell guns to the Indians, but most Mexicans will make a bargain if they have the chance, without the slightest regard to any law."
"How is it that the Mexican government does not try and get rid of these Indians? I see by the map that the frontier line is a long way north of the Gila."
"Yes, señor; they may put the line where they like, but there is not a white man for a couple of hundred miles north of the Gila, except on the Santa Fé River, and even there they are never safe from the Apaches and the Navajoes. Why, it would want an army of twenty thousand men to venture among the mountains north of the Gila, and they would all die of starvation before they ever caught sight of an Apache. No, señor; unless there is an earthquake and the whole region is swallowed up, I don't see any chance of getting the better of the red rascals."
After entering the house, Will said nothing of the news which he had heard. It seemed that there was no real ground for alarm, and yet he could not but feel very uneasy. The next morning he rode down to the river, where a number of peons were engaged in loading the rafts with hides and tallow. He had told Donna Sarasta that he should be down there all day, as he wanted to get the work pushed on. He had been there but two hours when Antonio rode up at a headlong gallop.