"How do you feel now, Mose?" asked Arnold, upon whose knee I found my head was resting.
"Not very much damaged," I replied, as I managed to sit up, "except by the loss of my rifle."
"Hif that's hall," said Bill joyously, "Hi'm blowed hif you're much 'urt. H'as for your gun, Painter can tell you h'if hit's much hout hof geer."
"It only got a good wetting," was Ben's answer. "It war wuss for the cartridges than 't war for the barrel."
Like a practical man, he had been employed in taking it to pieces, drying and cleaning it, after Bill had dived for it and brought it to land with him.
"Now, tell us, how you got into this darned scrape, old boy?"
In compliance with Arnold's request, I gave them a thorough narration, and as the moon had risen and it evidently promised to be a clear night, in another hour some half of the Rangers crossed the Colorado to look after the antelope, and if they could to pick off one or two of my assailants. However, they succeeded in finding neither antelope nor Apaches. The last had carried off not only all of their own scalps, but also the carcass of the game I had counted on for our supper.
We remained in this part of the country for some little time.
Nevertheless, we scared up no more red-skins. The Apaches, perhaps, had more respect for our rifles than the Bannocks lately had. Possibly, also, they were, at the time, not in force between Prescott and the Colorado. In any case, we saw nothing of them, and were unable to punish them for their disturbance of our hunting. In addition to this, we killed very little game, and at length crossed from Prescott down the Gila River to Fort Yuma. Thence, after remaining in its neighborhood for a few days, we returned and followed up the Colorado, through the Mojava and Navajos settlements, occupied by partially civilized red-skins, until, late in September, we once more found ourselves in the Honey Lake Valley.