Joe suddenly remembered his arm and lifted it gingerly.
Pashepaho saw the movement and grinned. "All ri' now." Then laying his hand on the boy's chest, "Here worse. Heap much hole. Bleed. Cough. Heap sick."
Joe put his hand to his chest. A rough poultice of leaves and herbs covered it. He could feel that it was still sore, but the burning, stabbing pain that he remembered the last thing before he became unconscious was gone.
He turned and grasped the hand of the young Indian tightly, and his gratitude shone in his sunken grey eyes.
"You're a true friend, Pashepaho, I guess you saved my life," he said fervently. Then, stopping now and then to rest when his breath gave out or a coughing spell came on, he told the story of the assault of the Sioux, Nina's capture, his own pursuit, his discovery of Nina in the teepee, and his shooting and escape.
"I don't know whether they got Nina again or not," he concluded sorrowfully. "I did the best I could, but when I got plugged in the chest I didn't know much afterward. I told her to get through the thicket if she could and find Kit, but I don't know whether she made it, and even if she did they might have got her afterward. To think of that poor little girl in the hands of that brute——"
His voice shook, and he stopped abruptly.
Pashepaho patted his shoulder. "No worry," he said. "She get home all ri'." Then, "Who get? Indian carry off girl?"
Joe's face flushed and his eyes blazed. "No, I don't believe there's any Indian mean enough. It was a white man. He lives with the Sioux——"
"Squaw-man?"