Well, I don't know where the Injins came from, but it seemed as if the hammer had hardly clicked before three or four of them bad piled on me. I put up the best fight I could, for I wasn't figuring to be caught alive, and this miss-fire deal had fooled me all along the line. They surely had a lively time. I expected every minute to feel a knife in my back, but when I didn't get it then I knew they wanted to bring me in alive, and that made me fight harder. First and last, we rolled and plunged all the way from the rim-rock down to the canon-bed. Then one of the Injins sung out: "Maria!" And I thought of that renegade Mexican, and what I'd heard bout him, and that made me fight harder yet. But after we'd fought down to the canon-bed, and had lost most of our skin, a half-dozen more fell on me, and in less than no time they had me tied. Then they picked me up and carried me over to where they'd built a big fire by the corral. Uncle Jim stopped with an air of finality, and began lazily to refill his pipe. From the open mud fireplace he picked a coal. Outside, the rain, faithful to the prophecy of the wide-ringed sun, beat fitfully against the roof. "That was the closest call I ever had," said he at last. "But, Uncle Jim," we cried in a confused chorus, "how did you get away? What did the Indians do to you? Who rescued you?" Uncle Jim chuckled. "The first man I saw sitting at that fire," said he, "was Lieutenant Price of the United States Army, and by him was Tom Horn." "'What's this?' he asks, and Horn talks to the Injins in Apache. "'They say they've caught Maria,' translates Horn back again. "'Maria-nothing!' says Lieutenant Price. 'This is Jim Fox. I know him.'" "So they turned me loose. It seems the troops had driven off the renegades an hour before." "And the Indians who caught you, Uncle Jim? You said they were Indians." "Were Tonto Basin Apaches," explained the old man--"government scouts under Tom Horn." [1] Pronounced "Hoo." CHAPTER TWO THE EMIGRANTS After the rain that had held us holed up at the Double R over one day, we discussed what we should do next. "The flats will be too boggy for riding, and anyway the cattle will be in the high country," the Cattleman summed up the situation. "We'd bog down the chuck-wagon if we tried to get back to the J. H. But now after the rain the weather ought to be beautiful. What shall we do?" "Was you ever in the Jackson country?" asked Uncle Jim. "It's the wildest part of Arizona. It's a big country and rough, and no one lives there, and there's lots of deer and mountain lions and bear. Here's my dogs. We might have a hunt." "Good!" said we. We skirmished around and found a condemned army pack saddle with aparejos, and a sawbuck saddle with kyacks. On these, we managed to condense our grub and utensils. There were plenty of horses, so our bedding we bound flat about their naked barrels by means of the squaw-hitch. Then we started.