"Glad you made out not to have any. Did those two white men and the Indians ride away in company?"
"Wa'al, no. The red-skins rid away first, and the two fellers promised to foller 'em after a while. Then I reckon they cut off into the timber. 'Peared like they must ha' been huntin'."
"Most likely they were; and waiting for us to get away, so they could go back to their mine. Boys, I'm afraid our claim won't be worth a great deal by the time we get back."
"We'll take care of that when we come, Cap. They said they'd take thar chances. We'll take ours; that's all."
Slower and more and more cautiously the mining train again moved forward, until from under the last of the pine-trees Captain Skinner could look out upon the valley and see that it was empty.
How would he and his men have felt if they could have known that at that very minute Murray was chipping away with his chisel at his inscriptions upon the central monument of the great Buckhorn Mine?
"Not a red-skin in sight," he remarked. "We'll go straight on down. There must be plenty of ways out of the valley."
No doubt of it, but the first business of those wanderers, after they reached the spring and unhitched their mule-teams, was to carefully examine every hoof-mark and foot-print they could find.
The fact that there had been lodges was proof that the Apaches were not a war party, but there was plenty of evidence that they were numerous enough to be dangerous.
"Glad Bill didn't pick a quarrel with such a band," grumbled Captain Skinner. "But how did he happen to show so much sense? I never suspected him of it."