"Indians only are tabooed, but none of them have shown up, not even his runner, and I guess you can speak to him if you want to; it isn't a thing most ladies would like to do, though," he added.
"I suppose not," she said good-humoredly, "but then, I've known the man for something over a year, and am not at all afraid—in fact, I'd rather like to do it and have something to horrify the ladies at the ranch with. Think of it! An interview with a horse-thief—perhaps a duet with him all alone in the middle of the night. Oh, yes, that's too good to miss. But I must hurry up, or they will be sending someone after me."
At the door of the shack, however, she paused a moment in what might be trepidation, her hand laid hesitatingly on the saddle, as if in doubt whether to remount or enter the shanty, from which she could hear the low refrain of a song of their cultus corrie—"Tsolo, tsolo!"
"The guard will not leave the door?" she whispered; and Sergeant Kelp concluded that, after all, she was pretending to greater nerve than she possessed.
"Never fear," he returned; "I will call him out to hold your horse, and he won't stir from the door. By the way, I'll have someone to see you home when you're ready to go. Good-night."
Then the guard was called out, and a moment later the visitor slipped in, the prisoner never turning his head or noticing the exchange until she spoke.
"Jack!"
He turned quickly enough.
"God A'mighty, girl! What are you doing here?"
She thought of the ears, possibly listening ears, on the other side of the door, and her tone was guarded and careless, as it had been with the Sergeant, as she laughed and answered in Chinook: