"We'll take care of that when we come, Cap. They said they'd take thar chances. We'll jest take ours; that's all."
Slower, more and more cautiously, the mining train again moved forward, until, from under the last of the pine-trees, Captain Skinner could look out upon the valley and see that it was empty.
How would he and his men have felt if they could have known that at that very minute Murray was chipping away with his chisel at his inscriptions upon the central monument of the great Buckhorn Mine?
"Not a redskin in sight," he remarked. "If there were any there this morning they've moved on. They're always on the move. Glad of it. We'll go straight on down. There must be plenty of ways out of a valley like that."
No doubt of it; but the first business of those wanderers, after they reached the spring and unhitched their mule-teams, was to carefully examine every hoof-mark and foot-print they could find.
The fact that there had been lodges there was proof that the Apaches were not a war-party, but there was plenty of evidence that they were numerous enough to be dangerous.
"Glad Bill didn't pick a quarrel with such a band as that," grumbled Captain Skinner. "But how did he happen to show so much sense? I never suspected him of it."
That was not very complimentary to Bill, and it was evident that the Captain's opinion of him had not changed.
"Some kind of an accident," he said. "Nobody need waste any time looking out for another one just like it."
It was getting late in the day, and a better place for a camp could not have been found.
"This'll do for to-night, won't it, Cap?" asked one of the miners.
"Of course it will. We'll try to move east from here, or south, when we leave it."
"Shall any of the boys go for game? Must be plenty of it all around."
"Game? Oh yes; plenty of it, after a hundred Apache hunters have been riding it down for nobody knows how long! The redskins leave heaps of game behind 'em, always."
The bitter sarcasm of the Captain's answer prevented any farther remarks on the subject of hunting that afternoon. They had plenty of fresh meat with them, nevertheless, and there was no reason why they should not cook and eat.
There was a reason why they could not at once be altogether pleased with their camping-ground. It was because they found the ashes of one fire still hot enough to kindle with.