Looking where he pointed, Wiki saw the slender figure of a young man bending over the spring. He drank eagerly, then taking his cupped hands, poured the cool water over his dusty limbs as if seeking relief in its freshness. His face, the boys saw as he turned it toward them, was weary and seared with the hot, reddish-brown dust, but young and pleasant, and he did not appear to be much older than themselves.
“He is none of our people,” whispered Wiki.
“No, but I like him,” exclaimed the impulsive Kwasa.
“How do you know?” asked Wiki sharply. “He may be a spy of the Utes for all we know.”
“No,” said Kwasa, “for if he were—”
“Here are the hunters,” cried Wiki joyfully, forgetting all caution and jumping up as a band of men turned into the canyon from the lower side.
“They are well laden,” observed Kwasa. “The men of the Snakes never hunt in vain.”
The young man at the spring, hearing their voices, suddenly straightened himself and looked eagerly about. Seeing the boys running toward the hunting band, he followed slowly, his hand resting cautiously upon his spear shaft, but his frank, brown face expressing nothing but friendliness.
CHAPTER II
The Warning
The long line of hunters, laden with the game secured by a week’s vigorous chase, was at the niche stairway before the boys reached them. Impatient to be in the court when they should arrive, to partake in the welcoming ceremony, the boys could not wait until the last of the procession had filed up the dizzy rock steps. Long before, in their explorations about the canyon, they had discovered another way to reach the cavern, steeper and more perilous, but entirely passable for boys whose lives had been spent in scaling cliffs and finding footholds in all sorts of precarious places.