“’PACHES ARE UP!”
Dell Dauntless was not only a daring and pretty young woman, but she
was also a most determined one. She was not obstinate or foolhardy,
as the colonel, perhaps, was tempted to think her. It was merely that
she knew her own resourcefulness much better than did her friends at
the post.
Skilled in plainscraft and versed in the ways of the wilderness, she
knew well her abilities to get through a hostile country. She asked
no odds of renegades, white or red--simply an even chance in the
broad country.
Her cayuse, Silver Heels, had had several days of absolute rest at
the post, gorging himself the while on government fodder. He was in
fine fettle, and ready, if necessary, to make the race of his life.
As Nomad had had the trick of talking to his horse, Nebuchadnezzar,
so Dell had acquired the habit of communing with Silver Heels--not
a rare thing with people when duty leads them in solitary ways with
only a horse for company.
“The good old colonel is afraid the ’Paches will catch us, Silver,”
said the girl, when they had flung past the sentry at the gate and
laid their course southward, “but he doesn’t know our mettle, does
he?” She laughed softly, but instantly sobered as thoughts of the
king of scouts and his pards flashed into her mind. “It can’t be,
little horse,” she went on, “that Buffalo Bill, and Nomad, and
Cayuse have fallen by the hands of Geronimo. Nothing can make me
believe it; I _won’t_ believe it!
“We’ll ride to Bonita with the sergeant, but we’ll not stop and
wait for the sergeant, Silver. Oh, no. We’re too clever for _that_.
It would be like the colonel to send somebody after us, so show me
your best pace, and we’ll first distance pursuit before we join the
sergeant. If I’m any judge, he’ll take the direct trail to Beaver
River, for if the ’Paches are anywhere, they’ll be in the country
to the south of the Beaver. We’ll lay for the sergeant at the ford,
pony, and we’ll get to the river just as quick as the nation will let
us.”
The small spurs jingled, and the white cayuse snorted and plunged
ahead into the starlight.
Silver Heels was a wonder when it came to the matter of speed. The
ground jumped from under him at a terrific clip, and Dell, leaning
far over the saddle-horn, peered steadily ahead.
She was not worrying any about the trail behind, for she knew that
her present pace would bid defiance to any pursuers who might be sent
after her.
Greasewood clumps and mesquit chaparral hurled past her, and she
glimpsed their gloomy tangles as a traveler might view them from the
window of a railroad-coach.
“You’re the limited express, Silver,” she murmured jestingly, “and
Beaver River is the only place where you can take water. Hustle, boy!”
And Silver Heels “hustled.” Without let or stay he reeled off the
dizzy miles, seemingly proud to show his speed and mettle.
In two hours the cayuse carried his rider over the sandy bank of the
Beaver and down into the stream. The river was shallow, and in the
middle of it Silver Heels caught his promised drink--a small one,
however, for a warm horse, who is to stand for some time, has no
business with his fill of water.
Ascending the opposite bank carefully, Dell left the trail and backed
Silver Heels into a thicket of paloverde. There she dismounted, and,
with reins over one arm, sat down in the warm sand in front of her
horse, waiting for Patterson and watching the ford.
Coyotes yelped in the hills; at intervals, from somewhere, came
the shrill, humanlike scream of a mountain lion; gray forms of
desert-rats slid across the open stretch in front of her, and the
ungainly form of a Gila monster shambled slowly near, only to puff
himself up and blow when she rolled a stone, and then turn and
shamble off into the thick bushes again.
None of these things did Dell heed. She was used to such sights and
sounds. Only the crawling form of an Apache would have aroused her
from her position in the sand.
The slow minutes dragged on, but without bringing the messenger from
Grant.
She began to fear that, after all, Patterson had not taken the trail
she had followed from Grant. Certainly the sergeant had not been long
in following her from the post.
If he did not come, she would traverse the country to Bonita alone.
She could do it, and easily, and she was not afraid. But she would
have preferred to travel with Patterson.
Just as she was on the point of giving up her wait, mounting and
continuing south alone, a fall of galloping hoofs reached her ears
from north of the river. Presently a horseman came into sight,
splashed into the stream, watered his horse, and made for the
southern bank.
Dell strained her eyes.
Undoubtedly it was Patterson. The moonlight silvered against his
belt-buckle and struck a gleam from the carbine at his saddle-horn.
With cautious looks to right and left, the sergeant rode out of the
river and up the bank.
Dell arose, mounted, and gathered up the reins in one hand.
The alert sergeant, hearing movements among the low trees, drew to
a halt and unshipped his carbine in a flash. The gun was at his
shoulder and leveled before Dell had showed herself.
“Don’t shoot, sergeant!” the girl called.
“What the blazes----” Patterson did not lower the gun, and the words
merely evidenced his complete astonishment. “Who are ye?”
“Dell Dauntless. I’ve been waiting for you.”
Thereupon Dell pushed out into the open, and Patterson gave vent to a
low whistle and lowered his gun.
“Here’s a surprise-party!” he muttered. “You must have come a-smokin’
to be waiting here like this.”
“I did. I was afraid the colonel would send some one after me.”
“That was sure a good guess. He sent two men after ye, but they gave
up and went back. What’re you intendin’ to do, Miss Dauntless?”
“Ride with you.”
“By all the rules o’ the game, I reckon I ought to send ye back.”
“You can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because I won’t go.”
“That’s you, an’ right spunky, I must say; but look! D’you understand
that we’re in hostile country?”
“Certainly.”
“An’ that we’ll have to hike through the bear-grass an’ scrub,
leavin’ the trail to wind along its unfollered way?”
“Sure I do.”
“Think ye kin stand it?”
“If I can’t, sergeant, you can drop me by the wayside.”
“Drop ye I’ll have to, then, kase I’m kerryin’ despatches that have
got to git through. But I can’t take time to send you back, and I
can’t waste any more chinnin’ here. I’d feel mighty bad if any harm
happened to ye, but my bizness is important. Drop in behind if ye’re
bound to come.”
Curtly enough--for Patterson was thinking of the important work
before him, and, truth to tell, hated to be bothered with a trailing
“petticoat”--the messenger spurred onward, dropping the loop of his
carbine-strap over the pommel as he went.
Where the trail entered the scrub he entered it, pointing up a slope
and turning southward again on the crest of a divide.
For an hour Dell followed, searching with her eyes to right and
left as did Patterson, and listening intently for sounds that might
indicate skulking Apaches.
Drawing to a halt in a ravine, where thirsty deer had gouged a
water-hole, while the horses were taking a few swallows of water,
Patterson spoke for the first time since leaving the Beaver.
“I don’t like the white hide o’ that cayuse, an’ that’s a fact.” He
nibbled at the corner of a plug of tobacco as he spoke, and his words
were a bit cut up. “’Paches are up, an’ they could spot the critter a
mile.”
“Silver Heels is the best cayuse in Arizona, in spite of his color,”
bristled Dell. “I’ll drop so far behind you, sergeant, that, if there
are any ’Paches around, they’ll spot me and give you a chance to keep
on.”
“I don’t like that, Miss Dauntless, nary _mucho_; but I’m the boy
with despatches, so I can’t act like I would if I didn’t have ’em.
Savvy?”
“Of course I understand. Your first duty is to get those despatches
through. Never mind me.”
Patterson jerked his horse’s head out of the water-hole, kicked in
the spurs, and pushed on up the ravine.
Dell, following by ear alone, allowed him to get well in the lead.
Another hour slipped past--an hour of scrambling through chaparral,
and through Spanish bayonet and catsclaw, through dungeonlike gullies
and up steep slopes; then followed another hour of passably easy
traveling.
Dell was still behind, still following the sounds ahead.
For Patterson to lose her, trained as she was in ways of the trail,
was impossible.
Disaster was hovering in the vicinity of the two, but it was not
threatening them on account of the white cayuse.
While Dell, busy with her thoughts, was sweeping the shadowy country
on every side and following the sergeant mechanically, she was
abruptly startled by the husky note of a rifle. A bloodthirsty
yell followed the report; such a yell as only an Apache can give.
Following the yell came the snort of a horse, and a thud of jumping
hoofs.
Without a moment’s hesitation the daring girl spurred forward,
jerking a revolver from her belt as she rode.
Patterson was in trouble! If so, he might need her.
That was her one thought, and she knew not the meaning of the word
fear.
A dozen leaps of the white cayuse carried the girl to the scene of
the shooting.
Again an unseen rifle cracked, and a bullet whistled past the girl’s
head. But she gave attention to nothing and to no one save Patterson.
And if ever a man stood in need of aid, it was the brave sergeant at
that moment.
Patterson had dropped from his saddle and was lying helpless on his
side. His horse, a few yards away, was standing stock-still, fore
hoofs planted wide apart, head thrown back, and nostrils sniffing the
night air.
The sergeant, when attacked, had been traversing a “hogback.” The
hogback was bare, and rose out of a thick tangle of brush. In
traversing the rise, the messenger had been prominently in sight
of savage foes lurking in the brush below. Two of these were now
bounding up the side of the hogback.
Dell saw the two Apaches almost as soon as she had seen the sergeant.
Both Indians carried rifles, but they must have been muzzle-loaders.
Had they been repeating rifles, the girl would probably have paid
with her life for her reckless charge along the hogback.
Having no time to halt and reload, the Apaches were springing up the
rocky slope, one with a knife in his free hand and the other with a
hatchet.
Tumbling out of her saddle, Dell rushed to Patterson’s side, jerking
out her revolvers as she ran.
The Indians were within thirty paces of her when she opened fire.
One fell, throwing up his arms and tipping backward down the slope;
the other--the one with the knife--flung himself behind a boulder.
Dell understood very well what this meant. Screened by the boulder,
the Apache intended to reload his rifle and then take his time
picking her off with a bullet.
Without a moment’s hesitation the girl charged the boulder, so that
the Indian had no time to use powder-horn or bullet-pouch. Forced
from cover, he bounded back toward the bushes at the base of the
hogback, zigzagging and ducking to avoid the lead sent after him.
Whether she hit the redskin or not Dell could not tell, but she
realized that it would be unwise to pursue him any farther.
Returning hastily to the sergeant, she knelt at his side.
“How badly are you hurt, sergeant?” she asked.
“Too badly to go on with the despatches,” he answered, lifting
himself on one elbow and jerking a packet from the breast of his
blouse. “Ye’re a brave ’un, Miss Dauntless. Here, take the despatches
an’ get ’em through.”
“And leave you?” she answered. “Not I.”
“Hang it, girl, can’t ye understand? I’ve got a lead plug in my side,
and to take me on will be a bother. Ye can’t do it and land the
despatches in Bonita.”
“Despatches or no despatches,” answered the girl, “I’ll not leave you
here to be killed.”
“I tell ye to go on!” growled the sergeant fiercely.
“And I tell you I won’t until you go with me. If you want me to get
the despatches through, you’ll have to let me help you.”
Already Dell had opened the sergeant’s blouse. The moonlight was
brilliant, there on top of the hogback, and she folded the trooper’s
cotton handkerchief, laid it over the wound in his right side, then
pulled the army belt up until it compressed the handkerchief and held
it in place. Next she led up the trooper’s horse.
“I’ll help you to get into the saddle,” said she.
“It’ll be a tough job,” Patterson groaned; “an’ I doubt if we can
make it.”
“We _will_ make it.”
“I can’t keep my saddle after ye get me into it.”
“Then I’ll tie you there. You’re going with me to Bonita.”
“There’s more Apaches. We’ll hear from ’em.”
“All right; if that’s how it pans out, they’d hear from me, too.”
Dell was strong, in spite of her slender build. Patterson could help
himself but very little, but the girl pulled him upright, got one of
his feet into the stirrup, and then heaved him onto the horse’s back.
There the sergeant drooped limply, hanging with both hands to the
saddle-horn.
Hastily unshipping her picket-rope, Dell bound the wounded trooper to
his mount, her deft fingers flying like lightning.
Then, with Patterson’s carbine in her hands, she leaped swiftly to
the back of Silver Heels, caught the end of the picket-rope, which
she had passed through the bit-rings of the army horse, and started
on.
Sping, z-z-z-up!
The Apache’s rifle spoke again, the bullet whistling sibilantly
through the air.
Dell felt a twitching of her buckskin blouse on the left side. She
had not been hit by the flying slug, but she had had a close call.
As she turned in the saddle, carbine in her hands and eyes on the
alert for red foes, an arrow sailed toward her, and cut through the
brim of her brown sombrero.
“Better let me go, girl,” groaned Patterson. “With me out o’ the way
ye can show ’em a clean pair o’ heels.”
“We’ll pull through together,” returned the girl resolutely, “or go
down together. That’s flat.”
The next moment she saw three Apaches racing along the top of the
hogback.
Without taking the trouble to raise the carbine to her shoulder, she
fired from the hip. Her aim was unerring, and the foremost of the
savages careened sideways.
Another bullet came at her. She heard a ring of lead upon steel,
felt the carbine shiver in her hands, and a shock like that from an
electric battery raced through her arms.
Again she essayed to pull the trigger of the carbine. The attempt
brought a revelation. The bullet that had struck the carbine had
shattered its mechanism and rendered it useless.
Again and again she essayed to shoot, but each time she failed. The
two remaining Apaches were leaping toward her, coming up under cover
of the wounded sergeant.
Flinging aside the carbine, Dell once more fell back on her
revolvers. But to use these smaller arms without hurt to Patterson
was well-nigh impossible.
The Apaches, who appeared originally to have numbered four, and
undoubtedly were a small detachment from Geronimo’s main band,
had lost two of their number. This fact not only rendered them
murderously vindictive, but exceedingly wary.
By approaching the girl from the side on which Patterson and his
horse were standing, they could shield themselves.
The sergeant, unable to make a single defensive move in his weakened
condition, saw the Indians and understood their maneuver. The
situation brought another groan from his lips.
“I’m liable to prove the death o’ ye,” he muttered. “Cast loose from
me an’ hike! There’s a chance yet.”
“No!” cried Dell.
Pulling Silver Heels backward, Dell sought to find an opening for a
shot; but the two Apaches moved forward as she moved back, and thus
frustrated her plans.
In the midst of the maneuvering, the unexpected happened, taking form
in the crack of a rifle from the bushes below the hogback.
One of the two remaining Apaches dropped his rifle and staggered.
Again the unseen marksman launched a bullet. This time the second of
the two Apaches stiffened in his tracks for a moment, then crumpled
to his knees.
The other, without lingering further, whirled about and plunged down
the slope and into the chaparral.
The astounded Dell strained her eyes toward the point from which the
unexpected shots had come.
“A friend in need, Patterson!” she cried.
The sergeant’s head was hanging forward. He heard Dell’s words, and
made a response, but his voice was too low and mumbling for the girl
to understand what he said.
The Apache on his knees had straightened out along the rocky slope.
An instant later a form came bounding up out of the shadows, paused
at the Apache’s side an instant, then came on to Dell and the
sergeant.
Dell’s amazement increased as the newcomer came more and more into
the light of the hogback’s crest.
He was not a white man, but an Indian--a slender, lithely built boy,
bare to the waist, his nether limbs clad in buckskins and moccasins.
An eagle-feather ornamented his scalp-lock, and he carried a small
repeating rifle.
“Ugh!” he exclaimed, halting close to Dell. “Yellow Hair,
Pa-e-has-ka’s girl-pard!”
“Little Cayuse!” cried Dell, her surprise and delight throbbing in
her voice.
A moment more and she was down from her saddle and had caught the
little Piute in a swift embrace.
Little Cayuse deemed it derogatory to the pride of a warrior to let
himself be betrayed into any show of affection. His feelings the boy
tried strenuously to keep in check at all times. And, as he frowned
upon any display of feelings by himself, he looked askance at it in
others.
With a grunt he withdrew himself from Dell’s arms.
“How does it happen I find you here, Cayuse?” went on the overjoyed
Dell.
The fact that Cayuse _was_ there proved that he, at least, had
escaped the slaughter of Bascomb’s escort; and, from this fact, the
girl argued that Buffalo Bill and Nomad had likewise escaped.
“No time for powwow,” returned Cayuse gruffly. “Plenty ’Pache in
hills. ’Pache who git away tell um other ’Pache. We ride quick, or
mebbyso we lose um scalp. Where you go, Yellow Hair?”
“To Bonita.”
“Who white soldier?”
“A trouper from Grant with important despatches. He is baldly
wounded. We must take him with us.”
Cayuse flashed his eyes over the limp trooper.
“Wuh!” said he. “Yellow Hair wait till Cayuse git um pinto.”
The boy whirled and darted down the slope and into the brush again.
When he returned he was mounted on a calico cayuse--his own horse,
Navi.
There were two slain Apaches on the hogback, and between them Little
Cayuse halted Navi, looking from one Indian to the other, and his
hand hesitating about the handle of a scalping-knife that swung from
his belt.
“Cayuse!” called Dell.
The boy turned his eyes upon the girl.
“You know what Pa-e-has-ka told you about taking scalps?” went on the
girl.
“Wuh!”
Little Cayuse withdrew his hand hastily from the knife and dug his
heels into Navi’s sides. His Piute nature craved the scalps, for on
one of them he was entitled to a second eagle-feather; but the better
side of his nature had listened to the teachings of the king of
scouts, although profiting by the teachings reluctantly.
“Come!” said he, taking the lead and crossing the crest of the
hogback.
Dell, leading Patterson’s mount, followed. Into and through the
chaparral the little Piute led the girl and the helpless trooper,
selecting ground whose flinty soil would leave no trail visible in
the daylight.
As the boy rode, his eyes glimmered like an owl’s into the
surrounding darkness, and he listened at every step like a coyote.
Dell yearned to be asking Cayuse questions about Buffalo Bill, and
old Nomad, and the rescue of Bascomb by Geronimo’s bucks, but she
knew that Cayuse just then would not talk.
It was close on to an hour later that the boy called a halt. They had
reached a water-hole. Probably Cayuse would not have halted even then
had he not discovered that Patterson was in a pitiable condition of
weakness, and that Dell was obliged to ride at his side and support
him with her arm.
“Ugh!” said Cayuse, slipping from Navi’s back. “Pony-soldier heap bad
hurt. We give um little rest. No like make um stop, but we got to.”
Patterson was unroped from his saddle and lifted down.
After he had been stretched out beside the water-hole, Cayuse
unbuckled the belt and pulled aside the blouse and the clothing
beneath.
Removing the red-soaked handkerchief, he lowered his eyes to within
a few inches of the wound, and examined it as well as the moonlight
would permit.
Presently he began probing with his fingers--a painful process which
the unconscious trooper could not feel.
“Him plenty bad hurt, Yellow Hair,” said Cayuse, “but bullet him no
stay in wound. Umph! Me fix um.”
Going to the edge of the water. Cayuse wrung out the handkerchief;
then, coming back, he bathed the wound.
From a medicine-bag swinging at his belt he took a brown powder
and sprinkled it plentifully over the wound. Next the medicine-bag
yielded a compactly rolled strip of soft doeskin. The strip was
unrolled and passed completely around Patterson’s body, the ends
brought tightly together and fastened with a long, sharp thorn. The
clothing was then replaced over the wound and a drink from the boy’s
canteen was forced between the sergeant’s lips.
Complete rest, assisted by the cooling draft, soon caused Patterson’s
wits to return.
“Where’s the despatches?” were his first words.
“They’re safe, sergeant,” said Dell reassuringly.
“I’ve got you to thank for that, Miss Dauntless.”
“We’ve both got Little Cayuse to thank for it.”
“Who’s Little Cayuse?”
“The Indian boy beside you. He is Buffalo Bill’s pard.”
“Then he must be the clear quill,” muttered Patterson. “Any pard o’
Buffler Bill’s is ace-high with me. How did he happen to be around
that hogback?”
“That’s just what I want to know,” said Dell. “From the despatch the
colonel received, I supposed that Buffalo Bill, Nomad, and Cayuse
were with the escort taking Bascomb from Phœnix to Fort Apache. That
despatch said that all the escort had been killed by Geronimo and his
hostiles, but I had a feeling that the murderous work could not have
extended to the scout and his pards.”
Little Cayuse gave a disgusted grunt and squatted on the ground by
the water-hole, his knees up under his chin and his hands twined
about them.
“Where’s Pa-e-has-ka, Cayuse?” inquired Dell, impatient because of
the boy’s provoking silence.
“Mebbyso Bonita,” answered Cayuse.
“Weren’t you, and Buffalo Bill, and Nomad with the soldiers who were
taking Bascomb to Fort Apache?”
“We leave Phœnix all same with escort. Pa-e-has-ka meet pony-soldier
from Bowie. Pony-soldier say something to Pa-e-has-ka, and
Pa-e-has-ka go with pony-soldier to Bonita. Wuh.”
“What about you and Nomad?”
Cayuse was silent for a space, breathing hard and looking gloomily
around.
“Wolf-killer and Cayuse go on with escort,” said he finally. “Two
pony-soldiers in escort; two pony-soldiers, Wolf-killer, and
Cayuse--him four _por todos_; five you count Bascomb.”
Again the boy relapsed into gloomy silence, his hands clenching about
his upraised knees and his black eyes smoldering in the half-light.
“What happened?” asked Dell.
“’Paches come,” answered Cayuse fiercely. “’Paches kill um
pony-soldiers, take away Bascomb, make um Wolf-killer prisoner.
Cayuse he _run_!” The boy released his hands, doubled his fist, and
brought it savagely down on the ground. “Cayuse _run_,” he repeated,
as though, by so saving himself, he had stretched the score of
disgrace to the uttermost.
“That was the proper thing for you to do, Cayuse,” returned Dell.
“Cayuse warrior,” grunted the boy; “him ought to stand by Nomad until
him die. Cayuse think um Wolf-killer get away, too; but him captured.
Ugh!”
“Ye’re a queer little imp,” remarked Patterson. “Used to be in the
army, didn’t ye? Bugler ’r somethin’?”
“Wuh. No like um army; rather stay with Pa-e-has-ka.”
“Cayuse thinks the world and all of Buffalo Bill, Patterson,” said
Dell. “For Cayuse the sun rises and sets in the king of scouts. It’s
a knack Buffalo Bill has of drawing his pards to him.”
“Pa-e-has-ka big chief,” said Cayuse curtly; “biggest chief of all
the Yellow Eyes. Him my chief, all same, always. Wuh.”
“When did the Apaches attack you, Cayuse?” went on Dell.
“Last sleep.”
“How many were there?”
Cayuse lifted both hands, fingers outspread, three times.
“So many. Mebbyso more.”
“It’s a wonder you ever got away,” breathed Dell.
“Me fool um. Piute fool um ’Pache every time.”
“Where have you been since the fight?”
“All same scout through hills; find out where um ’Pache take Bascomb.”
Patterson stirred excitedly.
“You found that out, did you?” he demanded.
“All same. Bascomb wounded, no can travel. Me find out where ’Pache
keep um.”
“Bully!” applauded the sergeant, stifling a groan of pain. “You’re
more kinds of a phenomenon, Little Cayuse, than I know how to
mention.”
“Ugh!” grunted Cayuse dejectedly. “Me run from ’Paches. What
Pa-e-has-ka say, huh?”
He cast an appealing look at Dell.
“Buffalo Bill,” returned the girl warmly, “will say that you did
exactly right.”
“Mebbyso,” said Cayuse, only half-convinced.
“Where is Bascomb?” asked the sergeant.
“Me tell um Pa-e-has-ka at Bonita.”
“Did you see anything of Geronimo?”
“Me see um: him with Bascomb.”
“Better and better!” Patterson turned to Dell. “That means,” he
finished, “that we’ve lost all the time we can at this water-hole.
The quicker Little Cayuse gets to Bonita and delivers his news, the
quicker this raid of Geronimo’s can be nipped in the bud, and Bascomb
recaptured. We’ve got to ride.”
The sergeant lifted himself to a sitting posture, but almost
immediately fell back with a groan of pain.
“I’m next to bein’ on the retired-list,” said he gaspingly; “but
for you, Miss Dauntless, I’d be lying, scalped, this minute on that
hogback. It was a lucky thing for me you broke away from the post
like ye did, an’ decided to trail along in my wake. First time I ever
fell down on a job the T. C. set for me!”
“You haven’t fallen down now,” said Dell.
“I’d like to know what ye call it!”
Cayuse was already on his feet, having caught the drift of
Patterson’s remarks relative to a hurried descent upon Bonita.
With Dell’s aid, the boy succeeded in getting Patterson back into his
saddle and again roping him there. After that he and Dell mounted,
and the journey was continued.
Steadily onward rode the three through the night and into the coming
dawn. No Apaches appeared to bother them, although the ominous
silences of rock niche and chaparral were on every side as they rode.
At last they entered Bonita Cañon.
“We’re gettin’ clost now,” Patterson roused to remark just as the
sun, like a golden pip snapped by the fingers of a Mighty Hand,
leaped upward over the rim of the cañon.
His words were taken up by the notes of a bugle, coming from around a
turn in the gorge.
The sergeant’s face brightened.
“That sound never rang in my ears so fine as it does now!” he
remarked.
Dell rode alongside of him and pulled the packet from her waist. In
the daylight she could see that it was stained redly.
“What ye goin’ to do with that?” inquired Patterson.
“You started with the despatches,” answered Dell, “and you’re going
to deliver them.”
“That’s your right,” expostulated the sergeant.
“It’s _your_ right, Sergeant Patterson! You’re a brave man, and
delivering the despatches is your duty.”
Leaning sidewise in her saddle, Dell thrust the packet into the front
of the trooper’s red-stained blouse.
Patterson tried to thank her for her thoughtfulness and generosity,
but the words died on his lips and he drooped forward, again fainting
from sheer weariness and loss of blood.
Dell supported him as she had done before, and thus they rounded the
bend in the cañon and came within sight of the military headquarters
in the field.