“You’re all right,” Rawley interrupted. “Quit blaming yourself. You saved two women by shooting when you did. Queo was afraid to stay and shoot again when he knew there was a gun at his back. He has gone down the ravine where we came up.”
“Who was the white girl?” Even Johnny Buffalo betrayed a very masculine interest, Rawley observed, grinning inwardly. But he only said:
“I don’t know. She was on the trail, with an old squaw and two burros. It was they that Queo was laying for, evidently. Don’t try to talk any more, till I get you where we can look after you properly. Where’s your pack? I didn’t see it, up there.”
“It is hidden in the juniper. I did not want to fight with a load on my back.”
“All right. Don’t talk any more. We’ll fix you up, all fine as silk.”
The girl was returning, and after her waddled the squaw, reluctant, looking ready to retreat at the first suspicious move. Rawley stood aside while the girl gave her brief directions in Indian,—so that Johnny Buffalo could understand, Rawley shrewdly suspected, and thanked her with his eyes. The squaw sidled past Rawley and sat down on the bank, still staring at him fixedly. His abrupt appearance and the consequent stampede of the burros had evidently impressed her unfavorably. The look she bestowed upon Johnny Buffalo was more casual. He was an Indian and therefore understandable, it seemed.
The narrow canyon lay sun-baked and peaceful to the hard blue of the sky. With the lightness which came of removing the pack from his shoulders, Rawley walked up the trail and around the turn to where the burro called Deacon still lay patiently on his back in the narrow watercourse below the trail. He slid down the bank and inspected the lashings of the pack.
“We use what is called the squaw hitch,” the girl informed him from the trail just above his head. “If you cut that forward rope I think you can loosen the whole thing. The knot is on top of the pack, and of course Deacon’s lying on it.” A moment later she added, “I’ll go after Pickles, unless I can be of some use to you.”
Privately, Rawley thought that she was useful as a relief to the eyes, if nothing else. But he told her that he could get along all right, and let her go. The girl piqued his interest; she was undoubtedly beautiful, with her slim, erect figure, her clear, hazel eyes with straight eyebrows, heavy lashes, and her lips that were firm for all their soft curves. But Johnny Buffalo’s life might be hanging on Rawley’s haste. However beautiful, however much she might attract his interest, no girl could tempt him from the chief issue.
By the time she returned with Pickles, Rawley had retrieved Deacon and was gone down the trail with him. She came up in time to help him lift Johnny Buffalo on the burro and tie him there with the pack rope. She was efficient as a man, and almost as strong, Rawley observed. And although she treated the squaw with careful deference, she was plainly the head of their little expedition,—and the shoulders and the brains.