"What tribe strike?"
"Lipans, Comanches, Mexicans. Followed some Pawnees once. They got away."
Red Wolf's whole manner told of the respect he felt for a young brave who had already been out against the fiercest warriors of the Indian country. He would have given a good many ponies to have been able to say as much for himself.
The position chosen by the Lipans was a strong one, and the scattered shots which now and then came from the mouth of the pass told that the beaten warriors of To-la-go-to-de were wide awake and ready to defend themselves.
But for one thing that end of the pass would have been already vacant. The pride of the Lipans forbade their running further without at least an effort to learn what had become of their chief. They felt that they could never look their squaws in the face again unless they could explain that point.
To be sure, it was almost a hopeless case, and the Apaches would be upon them in the morning, but they waited.
Everything seemed to be growing darker, and the outlying Lipan sentinels were not in any fault that four men on horseback should get so near them undiscovered. It was very near, and the new-comers must have known there was danger in it, for one of them suddenly put his hand to his mouth and uttered a fierce, half-triumphant war-whoop. It was the well-known battle cry of To-la-go-to-de himself, and it was answered by a storm of exulting shouts from the warriors among the rocks. Their chief had escaped!
That was true, and it was a grand thing, but he had brought back with him only three men of his "front rank."
The Apaches could hear the whooping, and the foremost of them deemed it wise to fall back a little. Whatever their enemies might be up to, they were men to be watched with prudence as well as courage.