The Scouts Galloped Onward
“Keep down! Keep down, please,” she directed to me, while she stood motionless. “Let me try.”
The chief neared until we might see his every lineament—every item of his trappings, even to the black-tipped eagle feather erect at the part in his braids. And he rode carelessly, fearlessly, to halt within easy speaking distance; sat a moment, rifle across his leggined thighs and the folds of his scarlet blanket—a splendid man, naked from the waist up, his coppery chest pigment-daubed, his slender arms braceleted with metal, his eyes devouring her so covetously that I felt the gloating thoughts behind them.
He called inquiringly: a greeting and a demand in one, it sounded. She replied. And what they two said, in word and sign, I could not know, but all the time I held my revolver upon him, until to my relief he abruptly wheeled his horse and cantered back to his men, leaving me with wrist aching and heart pounding madly.
She stepped lightly down; answered my querying look.
“It’s all right. I’m going, and so are you,” she said, with a faint smile, oddly subtle—a tremulous smile in a white face.
About her there was a mystery which alarmed me; made me sit up, chilled, to eye her and accuse.