“That’ll suit me, your honor,” was the reply, as he moved briskly off.

The boys soon returned, after an unsuccessful search for the bear.

Hal was disposed to blame everybody but himself for the escape, while Ned, with whom the bear had never been a great favorite, was inclined to laugh at the matter, to Hal’s great disgust.

His ill nature reached its culminating point, however, when Jerry suggested, that, “if he lied fifteen dollars more to git rid of, he’d better bury it than give it for a cussid, good-for-nothin’ bar, that warn’t nothin’ but a infernal nuisance to everybody, anyway.”

Hal accepted the gauntlet thus thrown down by Jerry, and was about to reply in no very polite language, when I changed the conversation, by requesting him to finish the narrative of his visit to the Apaches; and, after a little hesitation, he resumed his story as follows:—­

“The Indian told me, that, if I spoke to Juanita again, he’d send a bullet through my head; so Anastacio said, for the Indian spoke in Spanish.

“I didn’t talk to her any more for several hours, but rode all the afternoon by her side.  When we got to the top of the bluff from which we could see the Rio Grande, Juanita cried, and said that her home was there, and Anastacio felt so bad for her that he led her horse all the way after that.

“When we got to the river, instead of crossing, the Indians rode into it; and they made us all wade through the water for three or four miles, though the whole party came out on the same side.  From here we struck into the prairie again; and, after riding for two or three hours, we camped.

“Juanita was so tired, she dropped to sleep as soon as we stopped; but Anastacio and I kept awake, and saw the Indians cast a mule, and open his veins and suck the warm blood from them.  After this, they cut off portions of the flesh and roasted it over the coals, and made motions to us, that, if we wanted any, we must cook for ourselves.

“We were both hungry, but we couldn’t eat mule meat, then, although we had to come to it in a little time.

“We started by daybreak the next morning; and Juanita became so exhausted, that, before night, she asked me two or three times to kill her.  Finally, she appealed to Anastacio; and I heard him promise her, on a little cross she wore around her neck, that, if worse came to worse, he would do it.

“That day one of the Indians killed an antelope, and we all ate heartily of it, but Anastacio.  He took the meat they gave to him, and saved it for Juanita.  He carried it in his hand all day, and walked beside her horse, telling her stories in Spanish, and trying to cheer her.  He was as kind to her as he could be, during the whole seventeen days we were together.

“One night we slept in a great cave in a mountain,[Probably the Waco Mountain, thirty miles east of El Paso.] where there were four or five deep pools, of nice, clear water.  Juanita was so delighted at the sight of them that she sat on the brink of one and put her feet in it, to ’rest them,’ she said.  When the Indians saw her do this, one of them struck her with his quirt [A small, heavy whip.] over the shoulders.