The Talking Leaves: An Indian Story

by William O. Stoddard

No comment could be made by a "young brave" on an appeal to a white-headed "chief" like Murray, and the talk slackened a little.

It would hardly have done so if they could have looked a few miles in front of them just then. The darkness would have prevented their seeing much, but if they had been near the old Lipan camp they would have seen that it was empty.

A few Apaches had taken possession of it at first, but the smouldering camp-fires and blazing wagons gave light enough to the Lipans among the rocks to enable them to send occasional bullets at whatever might be stirring there, and the place was given up as uselessly dangerous. The scattered shots which now and then came from the mouth of the pass told that the beaten warriors of To-la-go-to-de were wide-awake and ready to defend themselves, and their position was well known to be a strong one—not to be attacked without both orders and re-enforcements.

But for one thing that end of the pass would have been already vacant. The pride of the Lipans forbade their running farther without at least an effort to learn what had become of their chief. They felt that they could never look their squaws in the face again unless they could explain that point.

To be sure it was almost a hopeless case, and the Apaches would be upon them in the morning, but they waited.

Everything seemed to be growing darker, and the outlying Lipan sentinels were not in any fault that four men on horseback should get so near them undiscovered. It was very near, and the new-comers must have known there was danger in it, for one of them suddenly put his hand to his mouth and uttered a fierce, half-triumphant war-whoop. It was the well-known battle-cry of To-la-go-to-de himself, and it was answered by a storm of exulting shouts from the warriors among the rocks. Their chief had escaped!

That was true, and it was a grand thing, but he had brought back with him only three men of his "front rank."

The Apaches could hear the whooping, and the foremost of them deemed it wise to fall back a little. Whatever their enemies might be up to, they were men to be watched with prudence as well as courage.

The words of the great chief were few. There was no farther account to be made of Captain Skinner and his miners, he told them. They were cunning, and they had taken care of themselves. It had been well to plunder their camp. He himself owed his safety to their old friend No Tongue, and the Lipans must never forget him. The Yellow Head had probably been killed, and they would not see him again. They must now gather all their horses and other plunder, and push their retreat as far as possible before morning. Some other time they would come and strike the Apaches, but it was "bad medicine" for them just now.

Whatever else that may have meant, according to Indian superstition, every warrior could understand that their losses had weakened them too much to think of fighting another hard battle. It was no disgrace to make a great deal of haste under such circumstances; and so, if Red Wolf and the rest had been near enough at that hour, they would have seen Two Knives and what was left of his band riding steadily on, deeper and deeper, among the mountains.