"No, I won't. It's your fight more than mine. If you want us to go ahead, we will go. If you say we are to keep back and let you go ahead, all right. If we say we want to do anything you will think it is crooked. Better not say. You say."
The chief had been expecting to hear some plan of action, and to find something "crooked" in it. Captain Skinner had beaten him at once and completely.
"Then you ride along with Lipans."
"No. The hearts of your young braves are hot and bitter. My men are angry. Must keep apart. Have fight among ourselves. No good."
There was no denying the good-sense of that, and Two Knives had no fear at all but what his pale-face allies would come back after their wagon, extra horses and mules. Of course they would stick to property for which they had shown themselves so ready to fight, and he could not suspect that they now had the best part of it carefully stowed away around them.
"Ugh! Pale-faces can't go ahead. Not stay behind. What then?"
"You say. We go."
"Ride left hand, then. Away off there. Not too far. We go this way. Both find Apaches. Come together then."
"All right. That'll suit us. Send some braves along to see that we don't run away."
Two Knives would have done so if Captain Skinner had not asked for it; but he instantly suspected a cunning plot for the destruction of as many braves as he might send, and he replied,