Then young Butler drew back, for Nance, seeing things red before his eyes, was hardly capable of knowing friend from foe.

Whack! bump! buff!

How those big fists descended!

For three or four seconds only did the redskin make any defense.  Then he cowered, stolidly, taking a punishment that he could not prevent.

“Don’t kill the poor scoundrel, Dad!” yelled Tad, dancing about the pair.

But still Nance continued to hammer the now unresisting Indian.

“Stop it, Dad—–­stop it!” Tad called sternly.

Then, as nothing else promised to avail, Tad rushed once more into the fray.

Dad was weakening from his own enormous expenditure of strength.

“Don’t go any farther, Dad,” Tad coaxed, catching one of Nance’s arm and holding on.

“I guess I have about given the fellow what he needed,” admitted the guide, rising.

As he stood above the Indian, Dad saw that the man did not move.

“I hope you didn’t kill him, Dad,” Tad went on swiftly.

“Why?” asked Jim Nance curiously.

“I don’t like killings,” returned Tad briefly.  He bent over the Indian, finding that the latter had been only knocked out.

“We’d better take the redskin back to camp, hadn’t we?” queried Tad, and Jim silently helped.  In camp, the Indian was bound hand and foot.  The camp fire was lighted and Tad went to work to resuscitate the red man.

At last the camp’s prisoner was revived.

“Now, let’s ask him about the thieveries that have been going on,” suggested Ned Rector.

“Humph!” grinned Dad.  “If you think you can make an Indian talk when he has been caught red-handed, then you try it.”

Not a word would the Indian say.  He even refused to look at his questioners, but lay on the ground, stolidly indifferent.

“He’s a prowling Navajo,” explained Nance.  “You may be sure this is the fellow, Brown’s ‘spirit,’ behind all our troubles.  He’s the chap who stole Brown’s rifle, who raided this camp, who set the lion free and who poisoned my dogs—–­so they wouldn’t give warning.”

“But why should he want to turn the lion loose?” Tad wanted to know.

“Because the Navajo Indians hold the mountain lion as sacred.  The Navajo believes that his ancestors’ spirits have taken refuge in the bodies of the mountain lions.”

“I believe there must be a strong strain of mountain lion in this fellow, by the way he fought me,” grimaced Tad.

“What shall we do with this redskin?” Chunky asked.  “Shall we give him a big thrashing, or make him run the gauntlet?”

“Neither, I guess,” replied Jim Nance, who had cooled down.  “The wisest thing will be for us to take him straight to the Indian Agency.  Uncle Sam pays agents to take care of Indian problems.”

It was late that afternoon when the boys and their poisoner arrived at the Agency.