"Fight? No. I was on a hunt in the Sierras that day. When I came home it was all gone."
"The Apaches?"
"The mine was there, but the works were all burned. So was the hacienda and the huts of the peons and workmen—everything that would burn."
"But the people?"
"Cattle, horses—all they could drive with them they carried away. We won't say anything about the people, Steve. My wife was among them. She was a Spanish-Mexican lady. She owned the mine and the land. We buried her before we set out after the Apaches. I've been following them ever since."
"Were the rest all killed?"
"All. They did not even leave me my little girl. I hadn't anything left to keep me there."
"So you joined the Lipans?"
"They're always at war with the Apaches. I'm pretty near to being an Indian now."
"I won't be one, then. I'll get away somehow. I'm white, and I'm almost a man."