"Thank you," breathed Flame who had turned away, her eyes searching the prairie. "If I could throw a sight on the brute who did that horror, there'd be a dead——"
"Let me take care of this, girl," said Childress, deeply aroused. "The skinning happened not long ago; the buck who did it can't have gone far. If you'll ride home and keep out of danger, I'll do my best to run down the Indian and bring him back alive. Then you can punish him under the cruelty to animals law."
The auburn-haired nymph of capricious impulse straightened in her stirrups, and the dimple which was so enticing disappeared as completely as though it never had been. "Has anyone asked you to fight Circle G's battles?" she demanded indignantly.
"No—not exactly," he admitted, secretly admiring her spirit and perhaps openly looking some of his admiration. "But this is more than a Circle G affair. It's my duty as—as——" almost had he made a fatal slip that would have disclosed his service to the King—"as a human being to bring this red dog to punishment. I'll drag him in if it's within my power."
"Two draggers are better than one," she persisted. "You needn't be squeaky about me; I can shoot some and I'm not afraid of any Indian that ever lived. Shall we ride together or spread out?"
Childress had been studying the topography as best he might from the saddle. They were perhaps five miles from the border and the beginning of the timber belt. Directly between lay one of those rocky buttes that crop up willy-nilly in the prairie provinces, as if the Rockies had tried to start farther east and then thought better of it. Already he had decided that they would spread out. His delay was only in an effort to determine which "spread" would be the safer one for her. The crack of a rifle startled him, coming as it did almost from under his ear. He turned to look.
Flame had unlimbered her Winchester and used it with effect. One of the buzzards had executed his last graceful, if heavy spiral, and was in a nose dive to death.
"One meal that bird won't get," muttered the ranch girl through set lips.
"A pretty shot, Flame—Miss Circle G!" he exclaimed.
He saw just a trace of the dimple as she began a smile at the quick correction of his slip.