"There were good ranches hereaway in the old times," said Captain Skinner, "and there was some mining done, but it was too near the Apache range, and there were too many revolutions. It won't be settled up till there's a new state of things. The Apaches'll take care of that."
All their troubles, they thought, were behind them, and they cared very little for those of the country they had gotten into—less than they might have done if they had imagined how nearly those very troubles might yet concern themselves.
It was impossible, however, not to think and talk about the Apaches, and to "wonder how the Lipans came out of their attack on that village."
Captain Skinner's comment was, "I don't reckon a great many of 'em came out at all. The chances were against them. Old Two Knives made a mistake for once, and I shouldn't wonder if he'd had to pay for it."
Well, so he had, but not so heavily as the Captain imagined.
At that very moment he was leading through the homeward pass just about half of his original war-party—all that "had come out of the attack on that village."
The village itself was in a high state of fermentation that morning. There was mourning in some of the lodges over braves who had fallen in that brief, sharp battle with the Lipans, but there were only five of these in all, so great had been the advantage of superior numbers in the fight, and of holding the ground of it afterward.
The bitterest disgrace of To-la-go-to-de and his warriors had been their failure to carry off the bodies of their friends who had fallen. At least twenty of the Apaches had been more or less wounded, and every man of them was as proud of it as if he had been "promoted." A scar received in battle is a badge of honor to an Indian warrior, and he is apt to make a show of it on every fair opportunity.
There was no need, therefore, of throwing away any pity on those who had been cut by the lances or "barked" by the bullets of the Lipans. Red Wolf himself had concealed a smart score of a lance-thrust along his left side, for fear he might be forbidden going on that second war-path. Even now he refused to consider it as amounting to anything, and his sister's face glowed with family pride as she said to Rita,
"Red Wolf is a true Apache. He's a warrior already. He will be a great chief some day. The Knotted Cord is white. He has no scars. He has never been on a war-path."