It is an old proverb of sea-fighting that "a stern chase is a long chase," and it is nearly as true on land, but the cavalry had pushed along with steady persistency, in a thoroughly business-like and scientific economy of time and horses. They were therefore in pretty good condition, men and animals. As Captain Grover remarked so it had been:
"I know about how fast the redskins can travel. They stole a whole grist of slow stock and that measures their gait."
However swift might be their best, the Apaches had gone no farther any day than the slowest half-dozen of their plunder. Captain Grover was therefore almost justified in a firm conviction he expressed that morning:
"Now for it, boys. We shall be among 'em before sunset."
On pushed the cavalry with enthusiasm, but at the same hour the Apaches were also pressing forward with increasing eagerness. They were no longer in one body. All their drove of stolen quadrupeds and their own superfluous ponies made up a sort of rear-guard, driven and cared for by about a dozen of the less distinguished braves, with orders to make as good speed as possible. The remainder of the force, full of whooping and yelling and a great hunger for glory and ponies, rode forward to find the Nez Percés. It could not be hard to do that, with so clear an idea as to the locality of at least several of them, but there was a surprise ready.
They had hardly ridden an hour when the foremost warriors made the air ring with whoops of wrath, and in a moment more the word "pale-face" was passing from rider to rider. They had found the victim of Sile's marksmanship, and the fact that he had not been scalped put away the idea that he had fallen before a Nez Percé. The trail of the two horses leading away to the left was plainly marked and could be followed, and there was no reason for special caution in so open a country. Still, the onward movement from that point was made in a more compact body and in something like silence. The trail before them led in the precise direction indicated by the brave shot by Sile, and the presence of both Nez Percés and pale-faces in that valley was of itself a sort of enigma. Word was left for the rear-guard to halt at the spot where the body lay until rejoined by the main force.
The garrison at the notch was ignorant of all this, but while the house-builders toiled at their wall with undiminished energy Long Bear sent out several of his best braves to scout around as far as might seem safe, and there was no danger of any surprise. There was one effect of all this even now to be seen in the sides of that stone wall. Windows had formed a part of the original plan, of course, but not nearly so many shot-holes.
"You see," said Jonas to Yellow Pine, "if any hostiles should ever make out to git inside the notch, this 'ere'd be the best kind of fort. Them holes are all big enough to poke a muzzle through."
"We'll have a stockade, some day," said Pine; "and we'll put another down at the gap, reg'lar fort fashion, with a gate and loop-holes."
Just then a whoop rang out from the braves at the gap and was followed by a chorus of them.