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?”
“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.
“You know what Pa-e-has-ka told you about taking scalps?” went on the girl.
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.