Then up the steep trail they climbed again, Lucille glancing back from time to time to behold the scenery, and, while the sun was yet two hours above the horizon, they came to a pass in the mountains, where she suddenly beheld an Indian sentinel standing in the trail ahead of them.
“Where is the chief?” asked the outlaw in the Indian tongue, and which was as Hebrew to Lucille.
The Indian sentinel pointed, and soon after there came toward them a horseman that at once riveted Lucille’s gaze. He was the Indian chief, Death Face, and he had just come down from the village to the pass, which his band of braves were guarding.
The youthful warrior was resplendent in a new costume, from boots to war bonnet, for he had on a pair of handsome cavalry boots. Sitting his horse with conscious power, armed with the white man’s weapons of revolvers and bowie knife, his face hideously painted, and mounted upon an animal that was bedecked in barbaric splendor, Death Face struck Lucille as being the most remarkable being she had ever gazed upon.
The chief fairly started as his eyes fell upon her, and the outlaw, after greeting him, said:
“Death Face, I have been on a raid into the white man’s territory, and this lady is my captive, whom I shall sell back to her father for a large price.”
To the utter amazement of Lucille, the young chief replied, in perfect English:
“I do not believe in the theory of my people, chief, of making war upon women and children, and I am surprised that you, as a white man, should do so; but that is your affair, not mine. Only treat her well.”
“That she will tell you I have done. I wish to place her in the renegade’s cabin in your camp.”