It was just like the picture which Many Bears had spoken about the day before, only that now the miners did not look like that, and Rita in her dream actually thought she saw Many Bears himself among the Indians who were attacking them.
"He said he was there. I see him. They are coming! The squaw I saw in the book! Mother!"
And suddenly Rita found herself wide awake, and all the rest of her dream was lost to her.
"Ugh! I never dream. That's the talking leaves. Dreams are big lies like them. What was it?"
"Miners? Pale-faces? Look, Rita, the braves are mounting to ride away. It is hardly sunrise, but they are going. Did your dream say there was any danger coming to us?"
"I don't care. The Apaches are warriors, and Many Bears is a great chief. He will not let an enemy come near his camp."
"Ni-ha-be, remember what came to Too Many Toes!"
"She talked too much--when the chief and the braves were troubled in their minds. I know better than to do that. I'll talk to you, though. It's my ford!"
Mother Dolores was already busy at the nearest camp-fire, for she had not allowed the great chief to ride away without a nice bit of something to eat. Meaner braves could go hungry or pick a cold bone as they rode along. Not so the mighty husband of Dolores, the best cook of the Apaches. She knew too well where all her importance and dignity came from, and Many Bears was particularly glad to get his hot venison-steak that morning. No orders were left behind with reference to moving the camp, but all the second-rate braves and half-grown boys were busying themselves over their weapons and ponies with as much importance in their manner as if they had been so many chiefs.
Some of them were well armed with repeating-carbines and good revolvers. Others had old and inferior guns. Many of the "boys" had nothing but bows and arrows, but they knew how to use them, and there is nothing much more effective in a close fight. Nothing except a revolver or a lance, and they all had lances.
On the whole, it was clear that Many Bears could muster quite a strong "reserve," as the soldiers call it, after all his tried and chosen warriors had ridden away with him at their head.
The fighting fever seemed to be spreading after breakfast, and the squaws too got out their bows and arrows, and so did the smaller boys. It looked as if any enemy who should ride into the camp of that band of Apaches that day would find it a sort of hornets' nest, with all the hornets, big and little, practising their stings.