"I reckoned he would!"
"I'll be fair to him, besides—he don't want no nursing; he wants to buckle to his work right off."
"No, no, stop that. Compel him to rest a day or two, which will make him more useful and bother us less."
"Oh, I say, cap.! I've put extra sentinels out all round."
"You did quite right; though there's nothing scary, we had better be on our guard. Those Red River Half-breeds are no more to be trusted than the purebred red men; and I wish they were both drowned in the nearest salt pool! But hurry up to dinner; I feel as sharp as a meat saw freshly filed!"
"That's me!" added "Corky Joe," promptly as an echo.
Long before the men were through their meal, voraciously though they ate, the two young ladies, who met in the wilderness from such opposite directions, had finished theirs—of which they had made but a mockery.
"Something unusual is about us, señorita," said Miss Maclan to Rosario, with an arch look. "There is a gay expression on your features, to which they are not habituated. Surely, now, something new is at hand; I hope you are going to tell me?"
"How curious we are!" returned the Southerner, smiling.
"Do not judge me wrongfully, indolent creature! It is not inquisitiveness that moves me, but friendship."