"Where the Apaches got through, Steve, we can. They're only a hunting-party, too."
"Only Apaches, Steve. Ours are Lipans. There's a big difference in that, I tell you."
"Yours too, and you must let them think you are their friend--strong. The Apaches are everybody's enemies--mine, yours--only fit to be killed off."
"Not so many as I mean to kill. That's one thing I'm on this trip for. Old Two Knives would almost have given it up if it hadn't been for me."
"I don't feel that way about the Lipans if they did capture me. All I want of them is to get away and go back to the settlements."
"Maybe your folks won't know you when you come."
Steve looked down at his fine muscular form from limb to limb, while the stern, wrinkled face of his companion almost put on a smile.
"Get off your war-paint. Put on some white men's clothing. Cut your hair."
"You've grown a head taller since you was captured, and they've made a Lipan of you all over but in two places."
"Your eyes and hair. They're as light as mine were when I was of your age."
"I'm not a Lipan inside, Murray, nor any other kind of Indian. It would take more than three years to do that."
"I've been among 'em seven. But then I never would paint."
The sun and the wind had painted him darkly enough; and if his hair had once been "light," it was now as white as the tops of the mountains he and Steve had been looking at.
Behind them, on a barren sandy level, through which ran a narrow stream of ice-cold water, about three-score of wild-looking human beings were dismounted, almost in a circle, each holding the end of a long "lariat" of strong hide, at the other end of which was a horse.
Some seemed to have two and even three horses, as if they were on an errand which might use up one and call for another. That was quite likely, for Lipan warriors are terribly hard riders.
Those who had now but one horse had probably worn out their first mount and turned him adrift by the way-side, to be picked up, Indian fashion, on the way home.
When a plains Indian leaves a horse in that way, and does not find him again, he tries his best to find some other man's horse to take his place.
More than sixty Indian warriors, all in their war-paint, armed to the teeth, with knives, revolvers, repeating-rifles of the best and latest patterns, and each carrying a long steel-headed Mexican lance.