This ended the conversation, so we went back to camp, where I found Jim Beckwith and a crowd of Indians joking, smoking and having a good time generally, for, as I have said before, this was the most sociable tribe of Indians that I ever saw. On our arrival at camp, Jim asked me in Spanish where I had been, and when he saw the Indian girl, said: "Oh, I see; you have been off courting;" and then he and the Indians had a laugh at my expense. I did not say anything to Jim about what I had heard until the next day. We started early in order to make the trip in one day. I told him the story just as I had it from the two Indians, and told him that I was going to try to get the girl away from the Apaches if she wanted to leave them. I rode along some distance, apparently in a deep study, and he finally turned to me and said: "I think you had better let that gal alone, for then. Apaches is the wust Injuns in the hull country. If you make the attempt and they ever git on your track, they'll run you down in spite o' you." To the readers of this book I will say I never was more astonished in my life, than I was to hear Jim Beckwith talk as he did. In all the time that I had been with him, this was the first time I had ever seen the slightest indication of his showing the white feather, as we termed it. It seemed to me he had lost all his nerve. I said: "Jim, my mind is made up; if that white girl is dissatisfied and wants to leave the Indians, I am going to make the attempt, and trust to luck for the balance." From that time until the day I was to go back to the village, he tried in every way he could think of to persuade me not to make the attempt, but I told him there was no use talking, that I looked upon it as being my duty, knowing that the girl was a slave to those Indians. On the day appointed I saddled Mexico and started for the Pima village. I met the two young Indians about two miles from the village, where they had come to meet me, and they were both riding one horse, Nawasa riding behind her brother. When I met them she jumped off from behind her brother and said she wanted to try my horse to see how he rode, and she got on Mexico behind me and rode to camp. I stayed at the village that night, and the next morning the three of us started out to gather huckleberries. After we were on the ground and were busying ourselves gathering berries, Nawasa said: "If you will go on that little hill"--pointing to a hill near by-- "at noon to-morrow, I will bring the white girl here to this tree, and you can see her for yourself." She made me promise her not to go any nearer the Apache camp at this time, for, said she, "If they suspect anything wrong, the white girl will be traded off to the Indians in Mexico for a slave." After making arrangements to meet the next day, Nawasa rode off toward the Apache town, and her brother and I rode back to the Pima village.