"Not yet. Old man Rutherford followed 'em up. I expect he will be here soon; if not, we shall meet him. They have got twenty hours' start—that is the worst of it. No, there ain't no chance of overtaking them, that is sartin. What we have got to do is to wipe some of them out, and to give them a lesson, and get the girls back again if we can; and we have got to do it quick, else we shall have the hull Injun country up agin us."
"I did not think that they would have done it," another man said. "The old man wur always good friends with the Injuns, and made them welcome when they came along."
"It ain't no good being kind to Injuns," another put in. "There ain't no gratitude in them."
"Injuns air pison!" Broncho said; and a general murmur of agreement expressed that in the opinion of the cow-boys this summed up the characteristics of the Red-skins.
In a few minutes the new-comers were provided with fresh horses. A spare horse was taken on for Rutherford, and then, headed by the survivors of the raid, the party started three-and-twenty strong. They travelled fast; not that there was any occasion for speed, but because every man was burning with the desire to get at the enemy. After riding about twenty miles they checked their horses, for a fire was seen a short distance ahead.
"That's all right," one of the settlers said. "That will be Rutherford, sure enough. It is just there where the valley forks. He is waiting there for us. He would know we shouldn't want a guide as far as this."
As they came up a tall figure rose from beside the fire.
"Well, Steve, have you tracked them?" Jim Gattling, the youngest of the party from the village, asked eagerly.
"They have gone over the divide into the Springer Valley, have followed that some way, and then through the little cañon, and up towards the head-waters of the Pequinah Creek. I only went through the cañon to see which way they turned, and then made back here. I guessed some of you would be coming along about this time."
"Was they riding fast?"