But the explanation did not satisfy the Indian maiden.
From her earliest memory, she had been taught reverence for the aged sorceress and she knew the fear her fellow-tribesmen held of the terrible curse that would be visited upon any Indian who dared penetrate the recesses of the cave.
Indeed, not unless she had been invited to enter, as an honour that would influence her to accept Dog Face as her brave, would she ever have had the temerity to enter and as she thought of being discovered in the "holy of holies" with the men she was trying to save, she trembled like a leaf, silently rocking too and fro as she wrung her hands in an agony of despair.
Plainly the outlaws heard the troopers draw nearer and nearer as they proceeded with their fruitless hunt.
"I reckon there's nothing for it but to stab the first trooper who pokes his head through the opening," whispered the world-famous desperado.
"I'll take that job for mine. The rest of you line up about me. As soon as I've knifed the first, some of you pull him out of the way and the others be ready for the next.
"If we can kill 'em without an outcry, we may be able to get em all."
The fiendish plan of slaying one man after another as fast as they appeared showed clearly how desperate Jesse believed their position to be.
It proved that in order to save his own life he had no hesitancy in killing any number of men.
And, as they heard the shocking proposition, even his pals, steeped in the gore of innocent men as their hands were, recoiled at the task imposed on them.
Yet they dared not disobey and silently took their places, kneeling, at the entrance to the cave, opposite their inhuman chief who waited, with bowie-knife upraised to plunge it into the heart of the first soldier that appeared.
But before the awful scheme could be put to the test, the old witch herself took a hand in the proceedings.
As the bandits kneeled, the beats of their hearts alone breaking the silence of the den in which they were, their ears strained for the first sound that should announce the discovery of the hole, they suddenly heard a shrill snarl in good English:
"Dogs of palefaces! What are you doing in my cave? How dare you profane the temple of a Navajo medicine? Curses on your palefaced heads! May you perish on the plains, riddled with wounds, mad for water! May the coyotes feed on your carcasses! May no grave hold your bones and may they be scattered to the winds! Curse you! Curse you! Curse you!"