"Can you understand them if you hear them speak?"
"Yes, as well as if they were Utes. It is better that I should go, and if I find that it will be wiser not to return, remember I shall either escape to Hurley"s Gulch, or stay so close that I can be of service if needed. But, if it can be avoided, do not bring on a fight with these people."
Sam was about to protest against Ulna"s course, but before he could utter a word the young Ute had sprung lightly over the rocks, and was making his way to the spring.
For the first time since leaving Gold Cave Camp Sam Willett felt thoroughly alarmed.
He had fearlessly faced the storm and stood undaunted in the presence of Nature in her most awful aspects, without losing heart for a moment, but the presence of these savages-ignorant and bloodthirsty-made him tremble for the safety of his dear father, to whose rescue he was straining every nerve to come.
Ulna"s daring and seemingly reckless conduct filled Sam with alarm, for apart from his great regard for that youth, he knew that he could not offer a strong resistance to the Apaches with only the inexpert Ike and Wah Shin to depend on.
"I wouldn"t ha" did wat Ulna"s done," said Ike, in a frightened whisper.
"No, not for fifty hundred thousand million dollars in goold an" solit dimeints."
"No catchee dis chile do so much like foolee," said Wah Shin, with a shudder at the thought.
"Hist! Keep still and stop the dog"s growling," said Sam sternly, as from his perch, higher up, he tried to make out what the Indians were doing down by the fire, and if possible to discover Ulna.
Meantime Ulna, moving as silently as the shadows that came and went about the fire near the spring, made his way toward the enemy.
He walked so erect and quickly that it would seem as if it were his purpose to go directly to the fire, but he took care to keep a rock between him and the enemy.
When within fifty yards of the spring he dropped on his hands and knees, and without stopping, crept quickly forward.
When he got so close to the fire that he could distinctly hear what the Apaches were talking about, he came to a stop, and lying close to the ground, he bent eagerly forward to listen.
The leader of this band was a man named Blanco, which is the Spanish word for white, though in this case it seemed to be misapplied.
Blanco"s repulsive appearance was increased by the fact that he had only one eye-like Badger.
The chief and his companions had already discovered that the spring had been recently visited, and they very naturally inferred from the tracks of shoes that they had been made by white men.
Nor did the impress of the moccasins escape their keen eyes.
"One Ute, three white men," were the first words Ulna heard when he got within hearing distance of the Apaches.
"Where did they come from?" asked a brave, who by the aid of a torch had been examining the tracks lower down the ravine.
"It looks as if they came by way of the Great Canon," said one.
"Ugh!" grunted Blanco, "I don"t believe that."
"But the trail leads that way," persisted the man who held the torch.
"I don"t care if it led into the sky."
"If it did, Blanco, you could not see it, and though our medicine-men say that people in the times far past came from the sky, I never heard of their bringing dogs with them," said the man with the torch.
"Dogs!" exclaimed the band in chorus.
"No; one dog."
"Where is it?" asked the chief.
"Here is the track," and the man held the torch down and showed the impress of Maj"s feet on the ground.
"No, that"s a wolf," said the chief.
"The foot of the mountain wolf is not so large," said the keen observer, "nor has it long hairs on its toes as has the creature that made this track."
Like all leaders, the chief did not like to be so openly contradicted by one under him, and he was again about to protest that he was right, and it was a wolf that had been at the spring, when, as if to set all doubts at rest, the fierce barking of a dog could be heard at the top of the hill and not more than two hundred yards away.
Maj, in some way, had slipped his muzzle and escaped Ike"s hold and was now making himself heard outside the rocks, among which Sam and his friends were hiding.
The instant the Indians heard the sound they seized their arms and sprang away from the light of the fire.
As luck, rather than design, had it, they ran in the direction where Ulna was hiding, and before he could think of rising to his feet they were about him.
The brave fellow stuck close to the ground, and he might have escaped had not one of the Apaches stumbled and fell on top of him.
The savage gave a yell of fear, but at the same instant he seized Ulna and held him fast.
"What is wrong there?" demanded the chief, as he hurried in the direction from which the cry came.
"A Ute! a Ute!" was the response of the man whom Ulna was making a desperate effort to cast off.
In an instant every brave had fallen on Ulna, and, almost as quickly, he was bound hand and foot, but he uttered neither cry nor groan to show the pain nor to tell of his mental anguish.
"Who are you?" asked Blanco, bending over him.
"I am a Ute," was the reply.
"Have you a name?"
"I have."
"What is it?"
"Ulna."
"What! the nephew of the hated Uray?"
"The nephew of the great chief, Uray."
"You come alone?"
"No, with friends."
"Utes?"