"Not one in sight," she shouted down to her mother. "Guess Cal's safe, anyhow. I don't believe they're coming."
She should have questioned Kah-go-mish about that. While she was nervously patrolling the roof of the old hacienda and watching for him, the prudent leader of the now well-mounted Mescaleros was pushing steadily forward. He had given out a careful set of orders, which proved his right to be considered an uncommon Apache.
"Ugh!" he said. "No kill. Borrow! Make pale-face lend poor Mescalero gun, horse, mule, blanket, knife, cartridges, kettle. Keep 'calp on head. No want 'calp now."
He hoped to find the ranch almost if not quite undefended and to take it by surprise, getting what he wanted without doing anything to provoke the altogether unforgiving vengeance of the military authorities.
Half an hour more went by that was very long to the watchers in the adobe.
"Four Indians, mother," shouted Vic, at last, from her station on the roof. "'Way off there, eastward. I can't see anything of father or the men."
"They will come, Vic. Watch!" replied Mrs. Evans.
"If they were near enough," said Vic, "I'd fire at them. They've halted."
They had done so, on a roll of the prairie, for they were a mere scouting-party, and they quickly hurried away as if they had an unexpected report to make concerning the state of things at Santa Lucia. Five minutes later Vic laid down her field-glass and took up Cal's rifle.
"More Indians, mother!" she shouted, and the loud report which followed testified strongly to the condition of Vic's fighting courage.