"Do you live here?"
"No'm," replied Tonto, "me stop-um here short time. Maybe leave soon."
Then Penny saw the crude lean-to fashioned from spreading branches of pine. Inside there was considerable duffle, packed for quick loading on a horse. "Do you mind," said Penny with an impulsiveness that later surprised her when she thought of it, "if I sit in your lean-to and get out of the rain for a few minutes?"
Tonto looked a bit surprised, then glad that he was so trusted by the girl. He seemed to be bending every effort to put her at ease.
When she stepped on the soft boughs of evergreen that carpeted the lean-to, the Indian removed his belt and the heavy revolvers and tossed them on the floor close to her. "Me not need guns now," he muttered. Penny understood, and appreciated the red man's gesture. He was putting his only weapons where she could reach them if she cared to. He remained just outside the roof of the small shelter, ignoring the drizzle as he sat on the trunk of a fallen tree.
"I'm from the Basin," the girl explained. "I used to come up this trail a lot, but it was always pretty hard riding. It's been cleared since the last time I used it."
The Indian nodded. "That plenty strange," he muttered.
Penny looked at him sharply. "Strange? Why?"
Tonto didn't reply. He seemed deeply preoccupied. "Do any of the men from the Basin ride this way?" asked Penny after a pause.
Tonto didn't reply.