The afternoon wore away slowly until the sun began to set behind the timber west of the ranch. In the meantime, the boys, having had no dinner, grew hungry, and Ralph spent some time below in boiling a pot of coffee and stirring and baking some ash-cakes, serving both with a bit of broiled steak. "It's too bad we can't have some venison," he sighed to his brother. "But I reckon my first big game is going to get us into a whole lot of trouble." "I reckon the Indians were getting ready to come down on us, anyhow," answered Dan. "It seems they can stay quiet just so long, and then their animal nature breaks loose for a shindy." Dan had just returned to the loft after his repast, when he uttered a shout. "An Indian is coming toward the cabin, Ralph!" "Do you know him?" "No, but he is a Comanche." "In war-paint?" "I don't know if it's war-paint or not, but he is daubed full of all the colours of the rainbow." "It must be war-paint. Is he alone?" "Yes, and riding a white pony. His gun is on his back, and he doesn't look as if he was up to mischief." "Oh, I wouldn't trust him!" cried the younger lad. "He may be up to some of their treachery." "But I can't stop him from coming to the cabin. I'll be on my guard, and you must be, too," concluded Dan, and went below. With quickness he hid away all the weapons but two pistols, one of which he stuck in his shirt bosom and gave the other to Ralph. "We must keep apart," said Ralph. "Then if he attacks one or the other the free one can fire on him." "That's good generalship," returned Dan, with a grim smile. By this time the Indian rider was close to the dooryard, and Dan walked outside to meet him. As soon as the youth appeared, the savage halted his steed. "How! How!" he said, in guttural tones, meaning "How do you do?" "How are you?" returned Dan. "Wolf Ear is sick--got pain here," and the red man pointed to his stomach. "Sick, eh? What have you been doing,--eating and drinking too much?" "No, Wolf Ear big sick two moons past,--sick come back,--can't ride and must lay down," groaned the savage, grating his teeth as if in intense pain. "White boy help Wolf Ear, me lof him." Under ordinary circumstances Dan would have been touched by this appeal, for he knew that the Indians suffered just as many aches and pains as did the white folks. "I am no good at doctoring sick men," he answered. "Wolf Ear had better go back to his own medicine man." At this the Indian stared at the boy stolidly for fully half a minute. He understood that he was not wanted, and that he would not be allowed into the cabin. "White boy have no medicine for Wolf Ear?" he said, slowly. "I don't know what would be good for you." "Where white boy's fadder?" "He has gone away." A sudden idea came to Dan's mind. "I think he has gone to Gonzales to bring along some of the lumbermen to look over the plans for a sawmill. There are about a dozen men thinking of setting up a sawmill around here."