"Go on! Go on! Too Many Toes is saying something about me. She says it is her ford, and I fell in because I did not know where it was. Hurry on, Rita."
It was a sad blow to the pride of poor Ni-ha-be, but it need not have been. Any girl in the world might have had just such an accident befall her, but not a great many could have helped themselves out of it so skilfully and so bravely. That was precisely what Steve Harrison had been thinking, and he had not joined at all in the laughter of Red Wolf.
It had been the chief's order that the lodges should be set up on the safe side of the ford, and so there was work enough before the squaws. Even some of the younger braves were called upon to lend a hand, and in less than an hour's time there was a very respectable Indian village. Lodges, ponies, fires, dogs, everything belonging to an Apache hunting-camp was there, and between them and any probable danger the river was rolling now, and the Lipans did not know where to look for the ford.
"Ni-ha-be," exclaimed Dolores, sharply, a little later, "go into lodge. Too late for young squaw. What will the great chief say?"
"It is early yet."
"Go in. Lipans come and carry you off. Old pale-face see you, and say foolish young squaw. Not know enough to keep dry. Fall off pony. Ugh!"
That was a sharp hit, and Ni-ha-be obeyed Dolores rather than stay for another reminder of her ducking, but Rita followed her very slowly.
"If I could see him again," she murmured, "I feel sure he would speak to me. I don't care what they say. Dolores may scold as much as she pleases. I will ask Send Warning about those words, and all about those pictures."
She little guessed that at that very moment Murray was saying to Steve Harrison,