"Thank goodness they have left you all right," said Elam, settling back on his blanket with a hunk of corn bread and bacon in his uninjured hand and a cup of steaming coffee in front of him. "Do you know that I have worried about you more than I have about myself?"
"Well, how did those Indians look when they were following you?" asked Tom, who had not yet recovered himself. His hand trembled when he poured out the coffee so that one would think that he was the one who had had a narrow escape from the savages. "Did they yell?"
"Yell? Of course it came faintly to my ears because they were so far away, but if I had been close to them, I tell you I wouldn't have had any courage left," said Elam, with a laugh. "I've got my saddle and bridle, and that's something I did not expect to get."
"Was there no one in the sheep-herder's ranch to look for you?"
"If there had been, I wouldn't 'a' been here. There was nobody there at all. I just went in and got my saddle, and that's all there was to it. You see, I was on their trail, and they had passed over that ground once and thought they had got everybody."
"Well, I am beaten. I never heard a whisper of an Indian since you went away. It is lucky for me that they didn't know I was here. How did those men look that were killed?"
"They were dead, of course. There was no mutilation about them, only just enough to show who killed them. If the Indians had got hold of them before they were dead, then you might have expected something. They would have just thrown themselves to show how much agony they could put them to. I never want to fall into the hands of the Indians alive. Do you know that the soldiers always carry a derringer in their pockets? Yes, they do, and that last shot is intended for themselves."
"By George!" said Tom, drawing a long breath. "Let us get out of here."
"Let's go back to the States. I never was made to live out here."
"Hi yah! I couldn't make a living there."
"But you talk well enough to make a living anywhere. You won't find one man in ten out here who talks as plainly as you do."
"That's all owing to my way of bring up. Ever since I was a little kid I have been under the care of Uncle Ezra, who talks about as plain as most men do."