It was Qui-tha, riding a half-starved pony whose mangy sides were working in the early morning sun like a pair of bellows.
He dismounted and grinned affably. "How! You give Qui-tha more strong medicine, maybe!"
"Look here, Qui-tha, I'll give you all the strong medicine you want, if you'll stay and help me for a week," cried Ernest.
Qui-tha shook his head. "No got time to work. Must go back to Injun camp take care of sick Injun. Qui-tha heap big medicine man, now."
"All right!" Ernest shrugged his shoulders. "No work, no strong medicine."
Qui-tha shrugged his shoulders and remounting, he started on up the trail to the ranch house. Elsa reported later in the day that Dick, having no peroxide, had promised to get some from Archer's Springs if Qui-tha would do a day's work for him. Qui-tha, she said, was giving the matter due consideration.
Late that evening, while Roger and Gustav were working at the little forge, Ernest came out of the living tent where he had been writing letters.
"Did you fellows hear a gun shot a little bit ago?" he asked. "You two are making such an infernal racket, I can't tell what it was."
Roger and Gustav both stopped work and listened. The desert was breathlessly silent.
"Are you sure?" asked Roger. "Did you think it might have been at the ranch?"