Mother Dolores was already busy at the nearest camp-fire, for she had not allowed the great chief to ride away without a nice bit of something to eat. Meaner braves could go hungry or pick a cold bone as they rode along. Not so the mighty husband of Dolores, the best cook of the Apaches. She knew too well where all her importance and dignity came from, and Many Bears was particularly glad to get his hot venison-steak that morning. No orders were left behind with reference to moving the camp, but all the second-rate braves and half-grown boys were busying themselves over their weapons and ponies with as much importance in their manner as if they had been so many chiefs.
Some of them were well armed with repeating-carbines and good revolvers. Others had old and inferior guns. Many of the "boys" had nothing but bows and arrows, but they knew how to use them, and there is nothing much more effective in a close fight. Nothing except a revolver or a lance, and they all had lances.
On the whole, it was clear that Many Bears could muster quite a strong "reserve," as the soldiers call it, after all his tried and chosen warriors had ridden away with him at their head.
The fighting fever seemed to be spreading after breakfast, and the squaws too got out their bows and arrows, and so did the smaller boys. It looked as if any enemy who should ride into the camp of that band of Apaches that day would find it a sort of hornets' nest, with all the hornets, big and little, practising their stings.
Ni-ha-be and Rita were like the rest, and more than one "young brave," who had never yet been in any kind of a battle, looked enviously at the pretty young chief's daughter who could already boast of having sent an arrow through the arm of a full-grown paleface warrior, and helped defeat him and his dangerous companions.
That was a bright feather for the cap of any Indian girl, and she had been compelled to tell the story of it over and over again to the other squaws.
They came to hear it over now, for it was closely connected in their minds with the warlike preparations and the evident anxiety of their chief.
"Ugh!" scornfully remarked old Too Many Toes. "Pale-face have soft arm. Hold it up for little girl to shoot at. Then laugh at her. S'pose pale-face come here. I show 'em."
"Yes," rejoined Ni-ha-be, with a flash in her black eyes. "Pale-face look at you, see your face, run right away. Afraid you'll talk. Hear you once, then they never come again."
The laughter among the other squaws sounded as if they were not disposed to admire Too Many Toes, but she had something else to say.