Murray was not a "general," and he had never studied war, but he knew it would be a good thing to have deep water between that camp and any assailants, instead of behind it. Many Bears was a chief of great experience, but it had never occurred to him that it would cost him all his horses if he should be beaten in a fight with a river behind him. The blunder was to be remedied now with a rapidity which astonished even Murray, for he had not known how good a ford there was right there.
"Hope the Lipans won't find that out," he said to himself. "They'll think twice before they try to swim their horses. I've given these fellows good advice. May prevent a battle. But if one should come, how could I fight the Lipans? What am I doing in an Apache camp anyhow? Steve and I must make haste out of this." And then a puzzled, pained, anxious look came over his wrinkled face, and he seemed to be looking around him very wistfully indeed, as if he wanted to see somebody. "Not to-night, perhaps; but I'll see her again in the morning. Steve and I must get away to-morrow. It'll be easy enough to give him his directions, and I can find Two Knives and his braves in a few hours."
As the deepening gloom of the evening settled slowly down, he stood beside Many Bears on the bank of the river, and watched the young braves drive in the last squads of ponies from their pasturage, and urge them across the ford. He had no idea how much quiet fun Steve and his friend Red Wolf had already enjoyed. The squaws had insisted upon making all the boys and girls who were big enough swim instead of going over on pony-back, and the youngsters, in their turn, had revenged themselves by all the mischievous pranks they knew.
If talk could have raised the river, the chatter of nearly two hundred squaws of all ages, added to the scolding of Too Many Toes, would have made a torrent of it. And yet a number of the squaws, wives and daughters of men of character and station, attended to the business of fording the stream with the silence and gravity of the most dignified white matrons. Dolores would have scorned putting herself on a level with such a squaw as Too Many Toes even in the use of her tongue, and as for Ni-ha-be and Rita, they never forgot to whose family they belonged.
"Rita," said Ni-ha-be, as they rode down to the river, "your blanket is loose. Red Wolf and Knotted Cord are watching us."
"Send Warning is not there."
"No, of course not. He is with the chiefs. Don't let them see we are looking at them."
"IN AN INSTANT SHE WAS FLOUNDERING IN THE RIVER."
Ni-ha-be had better have been attending to the feet of her own pretty mustang. The ford was not very wide just there, and the two girls were compelled to get a little out of the way of two mules loaded with lodge poles. Alas for the vanity of the chief's self-confident daughter! Her horse's fore-feet went over the ledge, and in an instant more she was floundering in the river, while every squaw and young Indian who could see her broke out into merry laughter. It was well, perhaps, that she slipped from the ford on the up-stream side; but she did not need a bit of help from anybody. No Apache girl of her age ever needed to be taught to swim. In a moment she had caught her mustang by the head, turned it to the ledge, and found her own footing on the rock, from which position she encouraged the unlucky quadruped to follow.