"Lay low, boys! Git to cover right away! Red-skins!"
There was no difficulty in hiding among so many rocks and bowlders, and the miners were out of sight in a moment.
They could see, though, even if they were not seen, and they were soon able to count a dozen Indian warriors leading three pack-ponies as far up the ravine as four-footed beasts could be led.
"Wonder if they've wiped out the two fellers?" said Bill.
"Looks like it. Or they may have captured 'em. Lost their game, if they haven't lost their scalps. Wonder what tribe of redskins they are, anyhow?"
There was a better reason than that why No Tongue and Yellow Head did not come back with their friends, but it was just as well that Captain Skinner and his miners did not understand it.
"Captain," whispered one of the men near him, "shall we let drive at 'em? We could pick off half of 'em first fire."
"Not a shot. All we want just now is to be let alone. I don't mind killing a few redskins."
"Likely as not. I'm kind o' glad they did. That there ledge is ours now. Let 'em carry off their game, and then we'll climb back. I reckon I know now how we'd best work our way down to the level those Indians came from."
The Lipans made short work of loading their ponies, and the moment they were out of sight the miners began their climb out of that cañon. There was no good reason why they should follow the Lipans.
A refusal to go out with the hunters was a strange thing to come from Red Wolf. No other young brave in that band of Apaches had a better reputation for killing deer and buffaloes. It was a common saying among the older squaws that when he came to have a lodge of his own "there would always be plenty of meat in it."
He was not, therefore, a "lazy Indian," and it was something he had on his mind that kept him in the camp that day. It had also made him beckon to Ni-ha-be, and look very hard after Rita when she hurried away toward the bushes with her three magazines of "talking leaves." Red Wolf was curious.
He hardly liked to say as much to a squaw, even such a young squaw as Ni-ha-be, and his own sister, but he had some questions to ask her, nevertheless.
He might have asked some of them of his father, but the great war-chief of that band of Apaches was now busily watching Dolores and her saucepan, and everybody knew better than to speak to him just before supper.