In it two Apache were working now, making arrow points at a primitive forge up in the shadows of the cleft, blowing a welding heat on a small pot fire with a bellows made of the skins and horns of the mountain sheep. They looked at Sid curiously and one grunted an exclamation in Apache at the other, but neither spoke to him. Then there was a commotion in the village. A hunter’s song came deep and resonant, from the depths of the medicine lodge. Presently there emerged two stalwart bucks, bearing the carcass of the ram that Sid had seen shot before his eyes that morning. The three arrows that still stuck in his side identified him for Sid. In addition its body was now gayly decorated with prayer sticks and symbolic feathers signifying thankful remembrance to the Great Mystery who had given them this food. All the village turned out rejoicing at the hunters’ song. From the grass huts came squealing children, laughing girls, and lithe young men, all sunburned black as negroes which gave Sid the idea that most of them had been born here. The procession came shouting and rejoicing along the path bordering the pond and then all followed the ram’s carcass into a large lodge down near the open lower end of the valley where evidently the old men of the council were to make the appropriate prayer--“Spirit, partake!” the Indian grace--over the game before dividing it among the band. Sid watched them depart. It seemed to him that a good time to act had now come. Honanta had not appeared. He was evidently in his lodge or else in a vapor bath hut near the pond preparing himself for his Sun Dance. One of the squaws had left her water jug standing by the brink of the tank, and it gave Sid the solution of a problem that had been troubling him for some time. He shouldered it and then walked swiftly toward the medicine lodge. There was no doubt now that the opening to the cave tunnel came out there, for out of it had just been brought the slain mountain sheep. He got to its door unperceived by any one and walked swiftly to the rear recess, his eyes rapidly accustoming themselves to the gloom within. “Hano!--Shall I free you?” he asked in Apache, as he groped his way to where the young buck sat bound. The Indian youth stared. If surprised at Sid’s speaking his own tongue, he gave no sign. Then he shook his head. “No: I await my father’s judgment,” he replied proudly. “An Apache does not run away.”