Toward noon they made out horsemen riding on the trail below them. As it wound in and out around the blind gullies they saw and lost sight of them a dozen times. At last, where the fringe of the tall trees began, they came face to face. It was Mr. Baker and a party of five men; they carried rifles and had set and anxious looks.
"What will you have?" said Indian Joe's father as they drew up before him under a tamarack pine.
"My son," said the cattleman.
"Is there war?" said the Indian.
"There is war. Come, Walter."
The boys were still and scared. Slowly Hank and Walter drew their horses out of the path and joined the men. Indian Joe and his father passed forward on the trail.
"Do them no harm," said Joe Baker to those that were with him.
"Good-by, Joe," said Walter half aloud.
The other did not turn his head, but as he went they noticed that he had bared his right arm from the hunting shirt, and an inch above the elbow showed a thin, white scar. Walter had the twin of that mark under his flannels.
Mr. Baker did not mind fighting Indians; he thought it a good thing to have their troubles settled all at once in this way, but he did not want his son mixed up in it. The first thing he did when he got home was to send him off secretly by night to the fort, and from there he passed over the mountains with other of the settlers' families under strong escort, and finally went to his mother's people in the East, and was put to school. As it turned out he never came back to Tres Pinos, he does not come into this story any more.