"Mebby it's the Great Spirit she was tellin' us about," suggested Texas with a hoarseness in his throat that he tried vainly to down. "She's a dead one that's sure—"
"Dew Drop no go Happy Hunting Ground; Medicine man he go Happy Hunting Ground. Mebby Jesse Jame he happy Hunting Ground," came in the plaintive tone of the Indian maiden.
It was maddening.
In a moment these hardy desperadoes who had faced death in a thousand forms, would feel their courage oozing from their finger tips and would make a run for the outer air.
"Where are you?" roared Frank. "Are you dead or alive?"
"Me here; me no with Great Spirit."
"Where?" bellowed Tony. "Where in the humping pizen snakes be you anyhow? You sound as if you was over my head, but if you be you're a dead one, and that goes."
Frank with a sudden thought in his mind was shading his eyes from the flaming torches and peering up into the shadows. There, more than ten feet above their heads, he saw the form of the little Indian maiden wedged in a crevice of rocks where she had evidently been hurled by the sudden explosion.
The men shouted for pure joy.