“Yes, dear Dennis, you’re safe now, I’m sure. It seemed as if the dreadful creature would never, never finish his crawling over you. The whole width of your body and so slow! If you’d moved or disturbed him he would have thrust his deadly fangs into your flesh and you’d have died. I’ve heard about those things. It was the kind God kept you, dear old Dennis, and sent this good man just in time to save you.”
Dennis was truly thankful and humble; yet he rubbed his confused head and wondered what need there had been of the peril if rescue were foreordained. However, such problems were too deep for his simple mind and he looked up in a manner to reveal the amusing perplexity he felt.
“Escapin’ the serpent to fall into the Injun’s hands! The fire an’ the fryin’-pan, belike.”
The rescuer was, indeed, an Indian, though he spoke fairly good English. But Carlota paid less heed to him than to the possibility of her wandering brother having suffered the same fate which had just menaced Dennis and, it might be, herself also. Laying her hand upon the stranger’s arm, she begged:
“Oh! tell me, please, have you seen a boy anywhere?”
The Irishman shivered in alarm at the girl’s audacity, yet no harm ensued. The Indian merely looked at her and answered by one word: “Plenty.”
“Where? Oh! please, please say where! Was it hereabouts? My brother, my twin—”
Then, indeed, did a curious smile show upon the redskin’s face. He wheeled around and pointed up the mountain through a canyon that seemed a continuation of the ravine where they then stood. Whatever his ability, he made scant use of his English, for all he answered was: “Come.”
Just then uprose a direful cry from the Fogarty:
“Ochone! Me bread! Me horse! The thievin’ creatur’! I’ll break every bone in his carcass, I will that!”