“But who shot you?” clamored Billy, “and what are you in here for? We’ll start back home right now!”
“No we won’t!” he vetoed; “there’s some Injuns up above there and they’re doing their best to git me. You can’t see ’em–they’re hid–but when I showed 179myself this noon some dastard took a crack at me with his Winchester. Did you happen to bring along a little grub?”
“Why, yes,” assented Billy, and went out in a kind of trance–it was so unreasonable, so utterly absurd. Why should Indians be watching to shoot down Wunpost when he had always been friendly with them all? And for that matter, why should anyone desire to kill him–that certainly could never lead them to his mine. The men who had come to the ranch were Blackwater prospectors–she knew them all by sight–and if it was they who had followed him she was absolutely sure that Wunpost had started the fight. She stepped out into the dazzling sunshine and looked up at the ridges that rose tier by tier above her, but she had no fear either of white men or Indians, for she had done nothing to make them her enemies. Whoever they were, she knew she was safe–but Wunpost was hiding in a cave. All his bravado gone, he was afraid to venture out even to wet his parched throat at the creek.
“What were you doing?” she demanded when she had given him her lunch, and Wunpost reared up at the challenge.
“I was riding along that trail,” he answered defiantly, “and I wasn’t doing a thing. And then a bullet came down and got me through the leg–I didn’t even hear the shot. All I know is I was riding and the next thing I knew I was down and my horse was laying on my leg. I got out from under him somehow and jumped over into the brush, and I’ve 180been hiding here ever since. But it’s Lynch that’s behind it–I know that for a certainty–he’s hired some of these Injuns to bushwhack me.”
“Have you seen them?” she asked unbelievingly.
“No, and I don’t need to,” he retorted. “I guess I know Injuns by this time. That’s just the way they work–hide out on some ridge and pot a man when he goes by. But they’re up there, I know it, because one of them took a shot at me this noon–and anyhow I can just feel’em!”
“Well, I can’t,” returned Billy, “and I don’t believe they’re there; and if they are they won’t hurt me. They all know me too well, and we’ve always been good to them. I’m going up to catch your mules.”
“No, look out!” warned Wunpost; “them devils are treacherous, and I wouldn’t put it past ’em to shoot you. But you wait till I get this leg of mine fixed and I’ll make some of ’em hard to ketch!”
“Now you see what you get,” burst out Billy heartlessly, “for taking Mr. Lynch to Poison Spring. I’m sorry you’re shot, but when you get well I hope this will be a lesson to you. Because if it wasn’t for your dog, and me running away from home, you never would get away from here alive.”