"What's all that amount to?" he asked.
"Strong medicine, Sooshiuamo, to make our hearts brave," answered all of them together.
"Then I'd rather you'd got a little sand in your craws," muttered Stephens in English. He had hardened his heart for a desperate venture, and their reluctance to follow him vexed him sorely. "There isn't one of them, not one, I don't believe, that's got any sand," he repeated. To have "sand," means to be willing to fight to the death when called upon, and that was just what these men were not willing to do. Then aloud in Spanish: "What's the good of all that tomfool business?" he asked. "You're only humbugging yourselves about it. You don't really mean fight." There was bitter scorn in his tones.
"Oh, yes, we can fight," retorted the Pueblo chief, not a little nettled at the American's words, "but we're not fools—at least not such fools as to want to get killed. But we've got a very good place to fight from here. If you go forward by yourself, and they shoot at you, then we'll be able to shoot at them from behind these rocks. First-class shelter here."
"Oh, it's A1," said Stephens sarcastically; "it's a splendid place to shoot from at people who are four hundred yards away, and out of sight." He gave a laugh of contempt. "Well, don't you make any cursed error, though, and shoot me in the back by mistake," he went on, while buckling his belt a couple of holes tighter, and securing his pistol holster at the back of his right hip so that it should not work round to the front of his body when he stooped and bent down to creep, as he must needs do, in the course of his advance on the Navajo camp. He saw to it that the buckskin strings which secured his moccasins were securely knotted, studiously attending to each detail with the tense nerves of the man who says to himself at every little bit of preparation, "Now may be the very last time I shall ever do that." To his revolver and rifle he needed not to look; they were freshly cleaned and oiled, and full of cartridges; both would go like clockwork, and he knew it. He handed the riata of the mare to the cacique. "You look after her for me, Salvador," he said; "I don't know that I'll be needing her again, but I guess if I leave her with you I'll know where to find her if I do."
"Come on, Faro," said he to the dog, patting his head and raising a warning finger to bid him come quietly, as if it had been for a stalk on some unsuspecting stag, and turning his back on the four Indians the white man went forward alone.
CHAPTER XIX RUN TO GROUND
Bending low, now creeping on all fours, now running with his body doubled to his knees, diverging to right or left as projections in the Lava Beds seemed to offer a favourable screen, but ever and always making for the front, the solitary man pressed on, his rifle grasped sometimes in the left hand, sometimes in the right, as the need for using one hand or the other in his advance arose. Twice he stopped to recover breath, while pushing his way onward, and cautiously twisted his head around to see what had become of his Pueblo friends; but they were invisible. Their skill in keeping under cover at least was undeniable. On he went again, till finally he reached the brow of the great rise in the lava bed from which Miguel had reconnoitred the Navajo camp. Past this he tried to get without exposing himself unduly, but thrice he failed to find cover, and retreated again to look for a better spot. The fourth time he found a hollow in the lava with a rise on the right of it that promised him some shelter, and flat on his face in this he wormed himself slowly along, the eager bulldog flattening himself against the rock by his side. Often had he crawled like this beside his master to get a chance at a deer. But it was more dangerous game than deer that they were stalking now. Having gained some twenty yards by this creep, Stevens slowly raised his head to get a view of the new ground that he knew should become visible in front of him from here. He caught sight of a little green oasis amid the lava beyond, of a band of ponies grazing in it, and of figures seated in a group on the far side; and, by Heaven! amid the figures his quick eye detected the flutter of a pink muslin which he had often seen Manuelita wear.