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The Apaches have arranged to attack it near Devil's Pass, which you know is about a hundred miles northeast from this point, among the mountains. You can't do anything to help it; but Ned Chadmund is with it, and his father, the colonel, offers you and me a thousand dollars apiece to save him. I leave to day Thursday for the pass, and you must follow the minute your eyes see this.
But the mustangs of the Apaches were fresh and fleet, and they had no purpose of meeting the United States cavalry where there was anything like an equal advantage; so they continued their flight with such persistent celerity that they soon vanished from view. The heart of Colonel Chadmund misgave him as he galloped toward Hurricane Hill and saw no sign of life there.
As he spoke he stretched out on the flat bottom of the ambulance, allowing his head to be elevated just enough to permit him to peer over the foreboard and guide the horse, which was now forced into a furious gallop. Earnest in his desire to obey, Ned Chadmund did the same, awaiting the result of this desperate attempt to escape from a most perilous position.
There were several extra horses in the company, one of which was appropriated by Tom, while he left his own to roam over the plain and reach the fort whenever his disposition should take him in that direction. Colonel Chadmund had taken the precaution to mount all his men upon the best steeds at command, and they were driven into a rapid, telling pace.
Then, after the story had been told, as the three moved off together, Dick Morris having picked up the rifle which Lone Wolf cast from him as the contest was about to open, Ned Chadmund gave him his version of that terrible attack and slaughter in Devil's Pass, and of what had followed since. When he came to explain the clever manner in which he dodged the Apaches, his listeners were delighted.
"Just think of it," whispered Chadmund. "I have spent hours and hours, and have traveled night and day to get away from him, and here he is, within fifty feet of me again. How can I keep him from seeing my trail again in the morning? It does beat everything how this thing is getting mixed."
Lone Wolf spoke English like a native; and, having waited until the admiration of Ned Chadmund had been given time to expend itself, he spoke in a deep, guttural voice: "Does the child of my white brother mourn for those who have fallen?" The lad was so surprised at hearing himself addressed in this manner, that he stared wonderingly at him for a moment without making reply.
At the time young Chadmund relapsed into unconsciousness it was nearly midnight, and for nearly two hours following there was scarcely the slightest change in the surroundings. The fires burned low, until the figure of the lad braced up against the rock grew dim and shadowy in the deepening gloom.
When the pursuing Apaches first fired their two shots, one of them slightly wounded the hand of young Chadmund, while the other, unsuspected by the lad, buried itself in the body of the mustang and inflicted a fatal wound. It was characteristic of the noble creature that his indomitable courage should remain to the last.
The loop, guided with unerring precision, and thrown with great power, was scarcely over the ears of the creature, when he dropped his head like a flash. The coil, instead of passing over his nose, dropped like a tossed wreath upon the top of his head, slid along his neck, and over the crown and back of Ned Chadmund, who shivered as if he felt the squirming of a cobra along his spine.
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