“I wonder if they’re wrangling about me?” was the thought that came to the lad, who immediately recalled the fate of Miss MacCrea during the Revolution, when the two Indians conducting her to Fort Edward settled a quarrel over her by sinking a tomahawk in her brain.

If the present excitement could be quelled only by such a remedy, he preferred that it should go on.  Otherwise, if there was a prospect of their settling it by falling upon each other, he was in hope of seeing it intensified.  It looked as if a deadly fight were impending, when he was tossed to the ground, and the three Apaches instantly dropped to the earth and faced each other.

CHAPTER XIV THE STRANGE CAMP

The Apaches, however, were not quarreling.  They were engaged in a dispute, or rather argument, which concerned them all, and about which it was all-important that no blunder should be made.

Fred Munson, the instant he found himself upon the ground, moved timidly back, so as to be out of the way when the expected clash of arms would come, and he watched the three men with an intensity of interest which can scarcely be imagined.  He now noticed, for the first time, that as the disputants talked, they all three pointed and looked, at intervals, up the mountain, showing that the all-absorbing topic was located there.

Following the direction indicated, the boy noticed the smoke of a camp-fire rising from the side of the mountain, about a quarter of a mile in advance.  It could be seen plainly and distinctly, although the fire itself from which the smoke came was imperceptible.  It was evident, therefore, that the discovery of this camp-fire had produced the excitement among the Apaches.

And why should such be the case?

The fact of it was, that the three Apaches were upon territory which could by no means be considered the exclusive tramping-ground of their tribe.  Immediately to the eastward roamed the Kiowas and Comanches, and it was no more than natural that their warriors should come into occasional collision, especially when none of them were disposed to recognize any of the presumed rights of the other.

The dispute, therefore, was regarding the campfire, which had suddenly appeared to plague them.  Did it belong to their friends or enemies ?

Lone Wolf, in sending his three warriors homeward with the captive, dispatched them by a round-about method through the mountains, for the reason that it would be more difficult to trail them.  The advantage which they had gained in the start, he was confident, placed it out of the power of Sut Simpson, or any of his friends, to do them injury.  But here, while carrying out the directions of their chief, they found themselves confronted by an unexpected danger.

If the Kiowas or Comanches, as the case might be, discerned the little company, they would not fail to observe that they had a prize in their possession, and they very probably would show a disposition to interfere.  The wrangle was as to whether it was best to go directly ahead upon the route they were pursuing, trusting not only to the possibility that the strangers there were friends, but to the prospect of their getting by without detection, or whether they should go to the trouble of a flank movement.