“And they know gold’s worth something, too,” put in Yank.
“This is a scout, not a house-moving expedition,” said Bagsby decidedly, “and somebody’s got to keep camp.”
“I’ll stay, fer one,” offered old man Pine, his eyes twinkling from beneath his fierce brows. “I’ve fit enough Injuns in my time.”
After some further wrangling we came to drawing lots. A number of small white pebbles and one darker were shaken up in a hat. I drew in the fourth turn, and got the black!
“Hard luck, son!” murmured old man Pine.
The rest were eager to be off. They leaped upon their horses, brandishing their long rifles, and rode off down the meadow. Old man Pine leaned on the muzzle of his gun, his eyes gleaming, uttering commands and admonitions to his five sons.
“You Old,” he warned his youngest, “you mind and behave; and don’t come back yere without’n you bring a skelp!”
We spent the next two days strictly in defence, for we dared not stay long from the stockade. I was so thoroughly downcast at missing the fight that I paid little attention to Pine’s well-meant talk. My depression was enhanced by the performance of the duty the others had left to our leisure. I mean the interment of poor Vasquez. We 239 buried him in a grassy little flat; and I occupied my time hewing and fashioning into the shape of a cross two pine logs, on the smoothed surface of which I carved our friend’s name. Then I returned to the stockade, where old man Pine, a picturesque, tall figure in his fringed hunter’s buckskin, sat motionless before the cabin door. From that point of vantage one could see a mile down the valley, and some distance upstream; and one or the other of us occupied it constantly.
About three o’clock of the second day Pine remarked quietly:
“Thar they come!”