Sid fixed his eyes finally on a tall chief who confronted him. The man’s features were round, heavy and forceful, such as we are accustomed to associate with the faces of the captains of industry among our own people. His long, coarse hair fell around his ears, tied about the brows with home-woven red bayeta cloth. A single eagle’s feather sticking up from the back told Sid that this man was a rigid disciplinarian of the old school and a formalist in the customs of his tribe, for it signified only one coup, such as a far younger man than he would have made in the old days. He wore a white buckskin shirt, with the tails outside coming down nearly to his knees. Long white buckskin leggins that disappeared under the apron of his breech clout told Sid, further, that this chief was a primitive red man, or else had not seen white men for many years. As Sid’s eyes still blinked, getting accustomed to the strong light, a coppery grin cracked the chief’s features. “Well! I’ll be--! What have we here!” he exclaimed in excellent English. Then he turned angrily to the young buck at Sid’s side and burst into a storm of guttural Apache invective. CHAPTER VI THE SOUL OF THE INDIAN That torrential outburst which raged out from the Apache chief seemed to scorch and wither with shame the young Indian buck who stood beside Sid. The chief was upbraiding him in the most scathing terms in the Apache language, as Sid understood it, for the folly of capturing and bringing here a white man to their stronghold. Sid’s own person was safe according to Indian honor so long as he remained in the enemy camp, but what to do with this white man, now that he was here, would be a matter that only the old men could decide in council. As for the youth, whose name Sid learned was Hano, he was being condemned to the direst penalties for his act. The chief finally paused, arms folded across his chest, and eyed the youth sternly, awaiting what reply the culprit could make. “The white man was spying on us, my father,” replied Hano, simply. “It seemed best to take him, lest he get away and tell others.” “Why did ye not follow him, then? If he saw nothing you could have let him go! If he saw--kill and kill quickly!” thundered the angry chief. “Die thou shalt instead!” The youth hung his head, unable to answer. It disturbed Sid strangely to learn that this boy was indeed the chief’s son, and that this Spartan sentence was being passed on him by his own father. He himself would have pardoned Hano, for youth does not think far ahead; it acts mainly on impulse. That he, an enemy, might discover the secret stronghold of an Apache clan and should therefore have been slain or taken seemed to Sid, too, the natural reasoning for Hano to have followed. Sid felt grateful that he had, for some obscure reason, probably the bond of youth itself, spared his life instead.