"The words of Send Warning are wise. He is very old, and he is a chief. No use talk any more. All braves go and eat a heap. Tell squaws bring up all ponies. Get ready to cross river. No lose time."
Murray was not a "general," and he had never studied war, but he knew it would be a good thing to have deep water between that camp and any assailants instead of behind it. Many Bears was a chief of great experience, but it had never occurred to him that it would cost him all his horses if he should be beaten in a fight with a river behind him. The blunder was remedied now with a rapidity which astonished even Murray, for he had not known how good a ford there was right there.
"Hope the Lipans won't find that out," he said to himself. "They'll think twice before they try to swim their horses. I've given these fellows good advice. May prevent a battle. But if one should come, how could I fight the Lipans? What am I doing in an Apache camp anyhow? Steve and I must make haste out of this."
And then a puzzled, pained, anxious look came over his wrinkled face, and he seemed to be looking around him very wistfully indeed, as if he wanted to see somebody.
"Not to-night, perhaps; but I'll see her again in the morning. Steve and I must get away to-morrow. It'll be easy enough to give him his directions, and I can find Two Knives and his braves in a few hours."
Murray was a good deal upset by something or other, and it may be he had not quite made up his own mind what his difficulty might be.
As the deepening gloom of the evening settled slowly down he stood beside Many Bears on the bank of the river, and watched the young braves drive in the last squads of ponies from their pasturage and urge them across the ford. He had no idea how much quiet fun Steve and his friend Red Wolf had already enjoyed in a very similar occupation. The squaws had insisted upon making all the boys and girls who were big enough swim instead of going over on pony-back, and the youngsters in their turn had revenged themselves by doing all the mischievous pranks they knew.
Old Too Many Toes had been conspicuous in shoving small Indians into the water, and when at last she finished packing her little borrowed mule and a borrowed pony, there was a perfect swarm of "divers and duckers" around her. The water came well up the sides of the little mule, and she would not have minded that if the boys had been willing it should go no higher.
Even the solemn face of Many Bears himself expanded into a chuckle of dignified fun.
"Ugh! Squaw scold. Get spattered."