He never once thought of his own personal danger, in the intensity of his interest in what was going on before his eyes.
The hunter had scarcely checked his mustang when the lad saw the Apaches appear upon a ridge some distance behind.

It was less than two miles away, and they all dashed over at the place where the _avant courier_ had come at his break-neck pace; and as soon as they were all over, and stretching away in the direction of the settlement, Fred had some chance of estimating their number.
"There must be a thousand of them," he muttered, in a terrified voice.
"They will murder us all--none can get away." His imagination, however, intensified matters.

The Apaches numbered several hundred, and, armed to the teeth as they were, brave, daring, and mounted upon the best of horses, they were as formidable a party as if they were composed of so many white desperadoes of the border.
A month before they would have walked over this party of pioneers; but there is no teacher like experience, and in the long journey across the plains, marked by innumerable skirmishes with the red-skins, the settlers had acquired a coolness and steadiness under fire which was invaluable in such emergencies as this.
But Simpson still maintained his position, glancing from the settlement below him to the approaching Apaches, with that quick, nervous motion which showed only too plainly that he felt a crisis was at hand, and he could delay only a few moments longer.
It was a thrilling sight, the hurried preparations of the pioneers, and the swift approach of their assailants.

The latter came in no regular order, but swept along like so many Centaurs, at first well together, but, as they approached the valley, gradually separating and spreading out, like a slowly opening fan, until the crescent was several hundred yards in breadth, and it looked as if they intended to surround the settlement.
Such being their apparent purpose, the hunter speedily saw that it would not do to stay another second.

He had come to warn the whites of their danger, and now that it had burst upon them, he emphasized his good intentions by dashing down the valley, and, leaping from the back of his mustang, took his place among a dozen defenders who were gathered in the building with the women and children.
His horse was covered with foam and sweat, for his master had ridden like Paul Revere, and he needed the rest that was now given him.