The old chief loved his daughter with a savage intensity. She was all the Great Spirit had left him, of many sons and daughters, and he felt that he would be ready to battle with death itself, but he could not give up his only child.
There was a mist over his fierce eyes, and a trembling about his cruel heart, as he bade the stranger a kindly welcome, who but for his good fortune in saving the girl, would have been condemned to a torturing death, unheard of.
So it was at last by this unforeseen accident, that the young gold-seeker slept peacefully by the smouldering camp-fire of the most cruel, relentless, tribe of the Colorado, and dreamed of his blue-eyed darling, far away over the desert waste, safely sheltered in Fort Tejon.
The morning dawned rich with the glowing warmth of a Southern climate, and though our young hero woke early, he was wearied from long travel, and lay for some time with half-closed eyes, lazily watching the Indians as they busied themselves about the encampment.
He was thinking how he should turn the advantage he had gained to the furtherance of his plans, when suddenly he felt, more than saw, that dark, jealous eyes were upon him. He feigned to be sleeping, while by a stolen glance he understood every thing.
The tall, stalwart, young Indian, who bent over him with dark, knitted brows and flashing eyes, loved the girl whom he had saved, and was already his enemy, and one not to be scorned, as his proud bearing, and the deference shown him by others attested. That he was in danger, Dick realized; yet he rose with a free and careless manner, greeting the young men with a smile, which was returned.
"Worse than I supposed," he said to himself; "treachery! but they shall not find me unprepared!"
The old chief and his daughter treated him with marked kindness, and he, by his modesty and pleasantry, tried to make friends among the young men.
After breakfast preparations were made for a hunt, and Dick was furnished with a fresh horse, and invited to join the company.