“Come now,” he resumed, turning to the girl from whose fresh beauty—which was beauty even in daylight, and even in the morning—his eyes did not willingly wander long, “tell me all about things. You don’t belong in here, but of course I have got to help you out. I wouldn’t fret too much. If I had not come along old Yellow Hand here would have put you on your uppers. As it is, we’ll put him on his. We’ll all go back down the trail together with my bullies yonder. We’ll hold a big rodeo down there and see what the buffalo and the Comanches have left for you. Very foolish of you, my dear; very foolish, indeed. But we’ll see what can be done.”
“How could we ever pay you?” said Taisie Lockhart, turning upon him fully now the gaze of her disconcerting eyes.
“You’ve more than paid me now, my dear girl,” said the old warrior. “Lockhart, you said your name was? What was your father’s name?”
“His name was Burleson Lockhart, sir. He was colonel of the Ninth Volunteers in the war. We came from Alabama, once. But my father did not believe in the secession, though he fought with Texas.”
“Why, I knew him! His regiment and mine were opposed, in Tennessee!” His voice dropped. “But the men said you were an orphan. Your father did not get back from the war?”
Sudden memory caused her to drop her face in her hands. Once more her foreman spoke for her.
“Her pap was killed on the Missouri border, after the war, by the Federal bushwackers up there. He was driving cows up thataway. Them Yankee people in Austin have done robbed this girl of everything she had. We was driving these cows to see if we couldn’t make a little stake for her oncet more.”
Sandy Griswold sat silent for a time. At last he spoke quietly to the tall girl who sat on a bed roll beside him.
“Well, now!” he said. “Well now, we’ll see what can be done. You don’t belong here, but I’d be no sort of a soldier if I didn’t see you through.”
Now, as though by providential plan, had arrived unity of purpose and cheerfulness of spirit, an hour earlier unpredictable. Colonel Sandy Griswold was no man to delay action. In a half hour the camp was broken, and the entire party, preceded by the troopers, was retracing the way south to the scene of yesterday’s disaster. The commanding officer rode by Taisie Lockhart’s cart. The ferret eyes of the sullen Comanche saw now what had been hidden in the _carreta_. Between the cavalry commander and these wild savages there existed a distinct understanding of some sort, resting on fear of the troopers’ carbines.