“Let me go with the Beaver and his men to his help,” cried Bart excitedly.
“My dear Bart, the Indians will be upon them before you could reach the horses, let alone saddle and bridle and mount.”
“It is true,” said the Beaver, sternly. “Chief Joses must fight the Apaché dogs himself.”
Bart knew they could do nothing, and just then he saw that the Mexican greasers had left the cattle, and were coming at full speed as hard as they could run towards the shelter of the rock.
“The cattle must go,” cried the Doctor, bitterly. “It is my fault. Why does not Joses leave them? Harry is running with the others.”
“Because poor Joses is too brave a fellow,” cried Bart in despair. “I must go to his help; I must indeed,” he cried piteously.
“Young chief Bart must stay,” said the Beaver, sternly, as he seized the lad’s arm. “He would be killed. Let chief Joses be. He is wise, and can laugh at the Apaché dogs.”
It was an exciting scene, the Mexican labourers fleeing over the plain, the cattle calmly resuming their grazing, and the cloud of Indian horsemen tearing along like a whirlwind.
The occupants of the rock were helpless, and the loss of the cattle was forgotten in the peril of Joses, though murmurs long and deep were uttered by the Englishmen against him who had sent them out to graze.
In spite, too, of the terrible loss, there was something interesting and wonderfully exciting in the way in which the Apachés charged down with lowered lances, the cattle calmly grazing till they were near; then lifting up their heads in wonder, and as the Indians swooped round, they wheeled about, and went off at a gallop, but only to be cleverly headed and driven back; and then with the Apachés behind, and forming a crescent which partly enclosed the lumbering beasts, they were driven off at full speed fight away towards the plain, gradually disappearing from their owners’ eyes.