“Very well, if you feel that you want to.”
The scout started for the corral, and Dell hastened toward the chuck-shanty. It was about two o’clock when they mounted, the girl on her white cayuse, Silver Heels, and the scout on his big black horse Bear Paw, and rode over the rim of the valley.
The inclination of the arrow, as it clung to the office door, had given Little Cayuse his clue as to the direction from which the Apache had done his shooting. The scout, no less than the Piute, had taken note of the arrow’s slant, and his course across the rim of the valley was in the exact direction taken by Cayuse.
Just over the rise, the scout and the girl found themselves in a rocky arroyo.
“Here’s a clue left by Little Cayuse,” remarked the scout, drawing rein in the bottom of the arroyo and sliding out of his saddle. “I felt sure he would leave one. Just a moment, Miss Dauntless.”
“Dell, if you please,” said the girl, “unless you want me to call you Mr. Cody. We’re not at all formal out here, as I reckon you know. I’m Dell to all my friends.”
“Dell, then,” smiled the scout, kneeling down in front of Little Cayuse’s clue, which consisted of a heap of white quartz from a “blow-out” which strewed the arroyo. Six fragments of quartz were arranged in a pile, and to one side of the pile lay two more fragments in a line.
“That,” said the scout, “is the work of my little Piute pard. It proves that he picked up the trail of the Apache that launched the arrow, and that he followed him up the arroyo. Those two pieces to one side of the heap and lying in a line, tell the direction.”
The scout climbed into his saddle again, and he and the girl continued up the arroyo.