“The Apaches are coming! The Apaches are coming! Lone Wolf will be down on yer quicker'n lightnin'!”
“The Apaches are coming! The Apaches are coming!” shouted Sut Simpson, as his mustang thundered up to the edge of the valley, while his clear, powerful voice rang out like a bugle.
The words were startling enough, and the sudden dropping of a dozen bombshells among the unfinished dwellings of New Boston could not have created greater consternation, emphasized as they were by the towering form of the hunter and steed, who looked as if they had been fired from the throat of some immense Columbiad, and had not as yet recovered from their bewilderment. There was some system, however, in the movements of the pioneers, for there was ever present in their thoughts the very danger which had now come upon them so suddenly.
In the structure which was nearest completion were placed the dozen women and children, while the other houses that were in a condition to afford the means of defense were taken possession of by the men, gun in hand, ready to defend themselves to the last. Fortunately enough, the horses happened to be corraled within the inclosure, so that, unless the defense should utterly fail, there was little danger of their being stampeded by the Indians.
While these hurried preparations were going on, the hunter remained seated upon his mustang, looking down upon the pioneers with a gathering calmness, as though he were a general watching the evolutions of his army. Now and then he anxiously gazed off over the prairie, his manner showing that he was mentally comparing the speed of the approaching Apaches with that of the labors of his friends.
To Fred Munson, perched in the top of the lofty tree, the whole scene seemed like a hurrying panorama of a dream. He never once thought of his own personal danger, in the intensity of his interest in what was going on before his eyes.
The hunter had scarcely checked his mustang when the lad saw the Apaches appear upon a ridge some distance behind. It was less than two miles away, and they all dashed over at the place where the _avant courier_ had come at his break-neck pace; and as soon as they were all over, and stretching away in the direction of the settlement, Fred had some chance of estimating their number.