“Do you mean Three Star?” asked Esmeralda.
“Yes; that’s it,” he said.
Esmeralda explained where the camp lay, and added that she lived there.
“I’m glad of that,” he said.
“Why?” she demanded, with wide-open eyes.
The young man colored—he blushed like a girl—and, looking confused, mumbled something in evasion of this embarrassing, direct question; then he rose, but with a difficulty which Esmeralda remarked.
“What is the matter with you?” she asked.
“I think I’ve got a bullet in my leg,” he said. “The fact is,” he continued, modestly, “I got into a little row at Dog’s Ear Camp, and just as I was riding off a fellow fired and hit me in the leg. I scarcely noticed it at the time; but just now I felt faint, and tumbled off my horse.”
“Let me look,” she said.
But he drew back shyly.