The two hunters scarcely spoke while this piece of mastication was going on. They understood each other so well that there was no necessity of any hurry in the way of inquiry or conversation. When at last they had filled themselves to repletion, they drew their fingers through their bushy hair, using the latter by way of napkins, and then, after a good long draught from the brook running near at hand, lit their pipes and leaned back in the very acme of bliss. "How soon shall we start?" asked Tom. "In a couple of hours," was the reply. "Think the Apaches are through by this time?" "No doubt of it." If the hunters seemed to exhibit indifference in referring to the terrible occurrence, it was not because they felt thus; but the lives which they led had accustomed them to such frightful experiences. "S'pose they've spared the younker?" "Guess they have." The conclusion to which both came was that the Apaches were incited to this attack more by the desire to get possession of the lad than by anything else, in view of the intense hatred with which Colonel Chadmund was viewed by the hostile Indians of the Southwest. He had been stationed over two years at Fort Havens, during which his administration had been marked by extreme vigor, and he had retaliated upon the Apaches especially in the severest way for many outrages committed by them. "Yas, they've gone for that little younker," added Dick Morris, after the discussion had been continued for some time. "Of course they haven't killed him; for that would have sp'iled their game. The colonel, finding what they'd done, would come down on 'em harder than ever, and you kin make up your mind they'd get the worst of the bargain before he was through with 'em; but as long as they hold the boy, you see, they've got the hands of the old fellow tied, for he thinks a heap of his boy, and he'll do anything to save him." "And that's why he sends us arter him," said Tom. "He knows that if he let a lot of the men go, they might get all chawed up, and it wouldn't help the boy any, so he thinks we kin get him out of their hands by some hocus pocus or other." "And what do _you_ think, Tom?" asked his companion, in a confidential voice. "Is there much show for ever saving the skulp of little Ned?" His brother hunter looked into the fire for several minutes, with a very serious expression upon his countenance. He was thinking intently upon the situation, and trying to extract some comfort from the prospect. "Wal, Dick, you know as well as me that it's mighty hard to tell in such a case. We've both got the best of hosses, that kin hold thar own agin anythin' the reds can scare up; but if they go to such pains to get the chap into thar hands, they'll take the same pains to keep him thar." "Exactly; but they won't be expectin' any such move as we're at so early in the day, don't you see? and there's where we gain the advantage by hurryin' on, afore they kin get off in the mountains with him."