Sile found himself the hero of the camp, and that the scratch upon his arm excused him from guard duty. At first he was well pleased to lie down and go to sleep, after the severe fatigue and excitement of his great ride. Never before had he raced it after such a fashion, and every bone and muscle felt the effects of the long strain. He saw, too, that everybody else was taking the matter with perfect coolness. All those miners had been in tight places more than once, and they had great faith in the prudence of redskins about charging upon white riflemen hidden behind rocks. Sile ate a hearty supper. In fact, he was compelled at last to be very positive with Ha-ha-pah-no. She would have gone right on cooking for him until morning if he had let her, and so would Na-tee-kah. They were positively proud of the privilege of bringing him his coffee. He was assured that the horse and weapons of the Apache warrior were his own personal property, and he examined them again and again with a sense of ownership that he had never felt for anything else. He could not tell why, until Jonas remarked to him, "If you hadn't pulled straight, your plunder'd be in the 'Pache camp 'bout now, scalp and all. It was jest a question of grit and shootin'. I'm powerful glad you made out to throw yer lead to the right spot." So was Sile, but it was not easy, somehow, for him to make up his mind that he had really killed anybody. He found a queer idea in his mind several times that before long that Apache warrior would wake up and wonder what had become of his horse and his weapons. Not long after supper he curled up in his blanket at the foot of a tree, and in a few minutes he was soundly asleep. He did not hear his father say to Yellow Pine, as the two bent over him, "My brave boy!" Nor did he hear Pine grumble, "If he hasn't earned a good snooze, then nobody has. Tell ye what, jedge, that feller'll be guv'ner of a State one of these days. I'd vote for him. I'd like to have seen him 'changing shots with that there redskin." They moved away, and the judge remarked, "We are safe enough for to-night, but they'll find us to-morrow." "Maybe, maybe not. I can't quite make it out as to what could bring 'em away up here. Two Arrows told Sile they was a war-party, and if that's so, they must have been licked somewhere. They'd never have cut it for these ranges without somebody was after 'em." "Perhaps so. We'll see. Anyhow, we can keep a sharp lookout." There was no danger that any sentry would sleep on his post that night, but all the first part and the middle of it went by as peacefully as if the valley were uninhabited.