“We’ll have to take you, Cayuse. I wouldn’t let you try to tramp back to the mine in your present condition.”
“Most white boys, with a shoulder like yours, would be in bed, Cayuse.”
“All aboard, Dell,” said the scout, getting into his saddle. “If we’re going to do anything with that ruffian who mistreated Cayuse, we’ll have to lay him by the heels before the Apaches join him. You lead the way and set the pace. Cayuse and I will tag along on Bear Paw.”
“It’s a rough road,” said the girl, rising to her own saddle; “by taking an even rougher one we can lop off that extra half mile.”
“Lop it off,” answered the scout. “I’ll lay a blue stack Bear Paw can follow wherever Silver Heels can lead.”
She spurred straight to the side of the defile and started up the dizzy path which the Apaches had climbed some time before.
Arizona is full of difficult country for a horseman; but of all the up-and-down trails the scout ever covered in the saddle, the course Dell led him on the way to Squaw Rock was one of the worst.
Not once during the entire trip were the horses on a level. When they were not standing almost straight up in the air, pawing their way aloft like mountain-goats, they were inclined downward so far that the stirrups touched their ears, and the riders had to brace back in them to keep from sliding over their heads.
Such a rough passage was hard on Cayuse’s tender shoulder, but he would have scorned to make the slightest complaint.
At one place on the devious path there was a cool spring, and here for a space the riders halted, refreshing themselves and their sweltering mounts with a drink.
At one place, too, Dell forced Silver Heels to a jump of half a dozen feet over a crevasse; and at another place she made a leap downward over a bluff of twelve feet. Bear Paw and his two riders were always behind, the scout marveling at Dell’s perfect horsemanship.
The girl, it was plain, was entirely at home in the saddle. Was there anything, the scout was asking himself, in which Dell Dauntless did not excel?
Throughout the entire journey it was necessary to keep a keen lookout for enemies, white and red. None were seen, perhaps because none would dare this almost impossible trail.
At last, after two hours of sweating labor, Dell pulled Silver Heels to a halt under the brow of a steep hill.