"Waal, if you haven't got no hostages, Steve, there ain't another minute to waste here. You see we had figured on them hostages. I see you have got some meat; that is good. Waal, are you all ready? because if so, let's git."
Three minutes later the party rode away from the burning village, the women mounted on the Indian horses.
"Thar's our cattle," Steve said, pointing to a herd out on the plain, "but it ain't any use thinking of them now."
"You bet," Broncho Harry replied. "There ain't no thinking about horns or hides at present. It is our own har we have got to think of."
"You think they will catch us up, Broncho?" said Steve.
"I don't think nothing at all about it. They are just as sure to catch us up as the sun is to rise. We have got every foot of a hundred miles to go, and the horses have been travelling hard for the last three days. By this time those fellows as have galloped on ahead are pretty nigh their main party, if they haven't overtook them before this. They had no call for speed, and would be taking it easy. You can't reckon much more than ten miles start. Still, when they catch us they won't be more than three to one.
"There was thirty-five went out, you said, Steve, and another twenty-five in the second lot. That brings them up to sixty, which is pretty nigh three to one.
"Well, three to one ain't such great odds even if they wur to come down and fight us in a body; but I reckon they would not do that. They are more likely to make a surround of it. They would know that we should have to leave pretty near half our number to guard the women, and the rest wouldn't be strong enough to charge them. Besides, it ain't only sixty we have got to reckon with. Like enough half a dozen of them started, as soon as we turned back, to the other villages of the tribe. You may reckon we shall have two or three hundred of them coming along in our track in an hour or two. Don't you make any mistake about it, Steve; we sha'n't get away, and we have got to fight. Now, you know the country, and what you have got to reckon up is, where shall we fight? You can't calkilate on above fifty miles, and if you say forty it will be safer. A few of the horses might get a bit further than that, but taking them all round, and reckoning they have been going hard for the last few days, forty is the longest we can calkilate on afore we hear the Red-skin yells behind us."
"The Two Brothers are about forty miles from here," Steve Rutherford said.
"Ah! I have heard of them. They are two buttes close together, ain't they?"