Turning from the gully into a small defile that broke through its left-hand bank, he halted, secured the pinto to a white-thorn bush, and carried out his further investigations on foot.
Proceeding onward along the gully, keeping in the shadow and dodging from boulder to boulder, Cayuse presently came upon a scene that made him congratulate himself that he had not plumped into it full tilt on his pinto.
At the point where the scene unrolled before the boy’s eyes the gully widened, and the starlight sifted brightly downward and dispelled much of the gloom.
He saw two horses quite near him. They were riderless, had been roped together, and the riata tethering them had been wrapped about a stone.
Beyond the horses were many Apaches; just how many the boy could not tell, but certainly there were a dozen, at the least.
The Apaches were working over some objects lying on the ground, and a white man was moving about among them, hurrying them about their work with gruff oaths.
Presently the Apaches started up the eastern bank of the gully in two groups, each group apparently carrying a burden.
What those burdens were Cayuse could guess.
Without doubt they were the men who had ridden the two horses that now stood bound together and secured to the stone.