eye prepared to confront the horrible death that awaited them, if they were discovered.
"Stay, in Heaven's name," the maiden exclaimed, as she dragged herself on her knees to Don Pablo's feet.
"Back, viper," the latter answered, "let us die bravely."
"But I will not have you die," she replied, with a piercing cry; "I repeat that I will save you, if you consent."
"Save us! God alone can do that," the young man said mournfully; "be glad that we will not sully our hands with your perfidious blood, and do not trouble us further."
"Oh! Nothing will convince you then!" she said, with despair.
"Nothing," the Mexican answered coldly.
"Oh!" she exclaimed, her eye beaming with joy, "I have found it. Follow me, and you shall join your friends again."
Don Pablo, who had already gone some yards, turned back with hesitation.
"What do you fear?" she said; "you will still be able to kill me if I deceive you. Oh," she added madly, "what do I care for death, so that I save you!"
"In fact," Valentine remarked, "she is in the right, and then in our position, we must let no chance slip. Perhaps, after all, she speaks the truth."
"Yes, yes," the girl implored; "trust to me."
"Well, we will try it," said Valentine.
"Go on," Don Pablo answered laconically; "go on, we follow."
"Oh, thanks, thanks," she said eagerly, covering the the young man's hand with kisses and tears, which she had seized against his will; "you shall see that I can save you."
"Strange creature," the hunter said, as he wiped his eyes with the back of his rough hand; "she is quite capable of doing what she says."
"Perhaps so," Don Pablo replied, shaking his head gloomily: "but our position is truly desperate, my friend."
"A man can only die once, after all," the hunter remarked philosophically, as he threw his rifle over his shoulder; "I am most curious to know how all this will end."
"Come!" the Spanish girl said.
CHAPTER X
A WAR STRATAGEM
The two men followed her, and the three began crawling through the tall grass and silently descending the hill. This painful march was necessarily slow, owing to the innumerable precautions the fugitives were obliged to take so as not to be seen or tracked by the scouts the Indians had scattered all around to watch the movements of the white men, and of any relief which might come to them.
White Gazelle walked actively in front of the hunters, looking cautiously around, stopping to listen anxiously to the slightest sound in the bushes; and when her fears were calmed, she went on giving the men she guided a smile of encouragement.
"Sold!" Valentine said, with a laugh all at once, as he rested his rifle on the ground; "Come, come, the little wench is cleverer than I fancied."
The two men were surrounded by a numerous party of Apache Indians. Don Pablo did not utter a word; he only looked at the girl, who continued to smile.
"Bah!" the Frenchman muttered philosophically in an aside; "I shall kill my seven or eight of them, and after that, we shall see."
Completely reassured by this consoling reflection, the hunter at once regained all his clearness of mind, and looked curiously around him. They were in the midst of Black Cat's war party, and that chief now walked up to the hunter.
"My brother is welcome among the Buffalo Apaches," he said, nobly.
"Why jest, chief?" Valentine remarked; "I am your prisoner, do with me what you think proper."
"Black Cat does not jest; the great pale hunter is not his prisoner, but his friend; he has but to command and Black Cat will execute his orders."
"What mean these words?" the Frenchman said, with astonishment; "Are you not here, like all the members of your nation, to seize my friends and myself?"
"Such was my intention, I allow, when I left my village some days back, but my heart has changed since my brother saved my life, and he may have perceived it already. If I have come here it is not to fight, but to save him and his friends; my brother can, therefore, place confidence in my words – my tribe will obey him as myself."
Valentine reflected for a moment, then he said, as he looked searchingly at the chief:
"And what does Black Cat ask in return for the help he offers me?"
"Nothing; the pale hunter is my brother; if we succeed he will do as he pleases."
"Come, come, all is for the best," Valentine said, as he turned to the girl; "I was mistaken, so I will ask you to forgive me."
White Gazelle blushed with delight at these words.
"Then," Valentine continued, addressing the Indian chief, "I can entirely dispose of your young men?"
"Entirely.
"They will be devoted to me?"
"I have said so, as to myself."
"Good!" said the hunter, as his face brightened; "how many warriors have you?"
Black Cat held up ten times the fingers of his opened hands.
"One hundred?" Valentine asked.
"Yes," the chief replied, "and eight more."
"But the other tribes are far more numerous than yours?"
"They form a band of warriors twenty-two times and seven times more numerous than mine."
"Hum! That is a tidy lot, without counting the pirates."
"Wah! There are thrice the number of the fingers of my two hands of the Long-knives of the East."
"I fear," Don Pablo observed, "that we shall be crushed by the number of our enemies."
"Perhaps so," Valentine, who was reflecting, answered; "where is Red Cedar?"
"Red Cedar is with his brothers, the prairie half-breeds; he has joined Stanapat's party."
At this moment the Apache war cry burst forth on the plain, a tremendous discharge was heard, and the hill of the Mad Buffalo seemed begirt by a halo of smoke and flashing lightning. The battle had began. The Indians bravely mounted to the assault. They marched toward the hill, continually discharging their muskets, and firing arrows at their invisible enemies.
At the spot where the chain of hills touches the Gila, fresh parties of Apaches could be seen incessantly arriving. They came up at a gallop, by troops of three to twenty men at a time. Their horses were covered with foam, leading to the presumption that they had made a long journey. The Apaches were in their war paint, covered with all sorts of ornaments and arms, with their bow and quiver on their back, and their musket in their hands. Their heads were crowned with feathers, among them being several magnificent black and white eagle plumes, with the large falling crest. Seated on handsome saddlecloths of panther skin, lined with red, all had the lower part of the body naked, with the exception of a long strip of wolf skin passed over the shoulder. Their shields were ornamented with feathers, and party coloured cloth. These men, thus accoutred, had something grand and majestic about them which affected the imagination and inspired terror.
Many of them at once climbed the heights, lashing their wearied horses, so to arrive sooner at the battlefield, while singing and uttering their war cry.
The contest seemed most obstinate in the neighbourhood of the palisades; the two Mexicans and Curumilla, protected behind their entrenchments, replied to the Apaches with a deadly fire, bravely exciting each other to die weapons in hand. Several corpses already lay on the plain; riderless horses galloped in every direction, and the cries of the wounded were mingled with the yells of defiance of the assailants.
What we have described in so many words, Valentine and Don Pablo perceived in a few seconds, with the infallible glance of men long accustomed to prairie life.
"Come, chief," the hunter said, quickly, "we must rejoin our friends; help us; if not, they are lost."
"Good,"