The lost girl felt pretty bad. It seemed to her, now that she thought more about it, that she was very ill used. Russ did not usually desert her when she was in trouble. And Rose Bunker felt that she was in very serious trouble now.
She sat down again in plain view of the lame coyote and cried a few more tears. But what was the use of crying when there was nobody here to care? The lame coyote had its own troubles, and although it watched her, it did not care a thing about her.
"He is only afraid I might do something to hurt him," thought Rose. "And I wouldn't do a thing to hurt the poor doggy. I wonder if he is thirsty?"
The stream of water into which Rose had tumbled from Pinky's back was only a few yards away, and perhaps the wounded coyote had been trying to get to it before the little girl and the pony came to this place. But the animal was too wary to go down to drink while Rose was in sight. And fortunately there was nothing Rose could take water to the coyote in. For she certainly would have tried to do that, if she could. She was just that tender-hearted.
But it would have been unwise, for the coyote's teeth were as sharp as they looked to be, and it would not have understood that the little girl merely wished to help.
Rose sat and watched the beast, and the lame coyote crouched under the bushes and watched her, and it grew into mid-afternoon. Rose felt very sad indeed. She did not see how she could walk back to the ranch house, even if she knew the way. And she could not understand why Russ did not come for her.
Meanwhile Russ was urging his pinto pony as fast as he could after Cowboy Jack and Daddy Bunker. They followed the regular wagon-track through the valley and over the ridge which had now become quite familiar to the little boy. They passed the cabin by the stream and then came to the knoll from which that morning Russ and Rose had seen the moving picture cameras.
But neither those machines nor the men who worked them nor the Indians on the hillside were now in sight. Cowboy Jack, however, seemed to know just where to find the moving picture company, for he kept right on into the ravine.
"I reckon this is about where you saw the Indians and the camera men, Son?" the ranchman said to Russ.
"Yes, sir," said Russ. "But Rose left me right on this hill. I thought she went back——"