At the place where the gulch forked the two halted and one of them repeated his wolf-yelp.
A little later the rocky walls reechoed with galloping hoofs, and three more Apaches showed themselves, and joined the other two.
The entire party then turned into the right-hand branch of the defile.
Cayuse continued to follow, noiselessly, swiftly, screening his passage with all the cunning of a coyote.
The gloom thickened in the bottom of the gulch. He was glad of it, for it made his trailing easier.
The Apaches talked and laughed as they journeyed, entirely oblivious of the fact that a hated Piute was hanging upon their trail.
All might have gone well with the boy had he noticed a figure on the top of the gulch wall, looking down. It was the figure of a white man, and the white man had under his eyes both the forms of the mounted Apaches and the trailing Piute.
The man stared for a space, then drew back.
Little Cayuse wondered why, when the Apaches arrived opposite the narrow defile that entered the wall of the gulch, they ceased their talking and laughing and came to an abrupt halt.