"I should think I did," replied Ned, with a laugh which he forced so well that no one would have suspected its sincerity. "I'm about half starved to death, and was afraid I was not going to get any supper at all!" "Take that, and go to sleep." The large bone was given a flirt by the huge warrior, and fell directly into his lap. It was not very pleasant to take it second-hand, but a boy in his situation could not be very fastidious, and, thanking the chief for his princely liberality, Ned fell to and gnawed away like a famished dog. It struck him as curious that none of the warriors appeared to note his presence, but he knew better than to believe that such apparent blindness was real. He was as securely within their power as if bound hand and foot. "He told me to go to sleep," he said, as he stretched out upon his blanket; "I guess I'll try and do it. I don't see any use of sitting up and watching such a set of wretches as they are. I'd rather have a pack of wolves about me than such as they." The night was too mild to require the blanket wrapped over him; besides which the warmth from the camp fire was very perceptible; so he lay upon his back looking up at the stars and endeavoring to shut out from his thoughts the hateful beings gathered around, and whose grunting voices and loud exclamations were never quiet, but continued so long that they acquired a certain monotony, like the rattle and hum of the mill, which lulls the miller to sleep. "It's strange," he murmured, as his imaginings became as wayward as a boy's will. "Father is off yonder, I don't know how many hundred miles, and mother is just the opposite way in Santa Fe, and here I am about half way between them. We were never so scattered in all the world before. I wonder what father will do when he finds out about Lone Wolf? The chief has put his blanket of greenbacks away somewhere, and I guess he knows how to take care of them. I declare, but that was a big haul--one hundred thousand dollars at a lick! I should think Lone Wolf might afford to retire now on what he has made. But the poor men," added Ned, with that sudden throb of the heart which always came when lie recalled the fearful attack and massacre in Devil's Pass. "Not one of them left alive! Oh, I wish I could forget it all! but I never, never can. The Indians have done such things many a time before, but I never saw them. It'll kill me if I don't keep it out of my thoughts."