The effect of this was startling. The sack of chips came tumbling off the pots and pans, spilling upon the roadway. The tin things followed with a crash. And, with a grunt, the bent figure retreated a few steps and uncovered its face.
In very amazement Dallas let go the mules. The creature facing her was young and pitifully thin. About a face dripping with perspiration fell a mop of tangled hair. Under a tattered mourning blanket, a bulging calico waist disclosed, through many rents, a lean and bony chest. And below the leather strap that belted both the sombre blanket and the waist, hung limply the shreds of a fringed buckskin petticoat. The straggler was an Indian—a male—yet, despite his sex, he wore, not a brave's dress, but the filthy, degrading garb of a squaw!
He watched Dallas with cowed, questioning eyes, strangely soft and un-Indian in their expression. After a moment, seeing that he was ill, as well as unarmed, she ceased to feel afraid of him.
"How," she said, in greeting.
He made no reply, only continued to watch her steadily.
"How," she repeated, and smiled.
His eyes instantly brightened.
"You sick?" she asked, moving her head sorrowfully in pantomime.
For answer, he shambled closer and held up first one naked foot and then the other, like a suffering hound. Dallas saw that they were sore from stone bruises and bleeding from cactus wounds.
"Oh, you're hurt!" she cried.