The water gurgled down the boy’s throat, and his black eyes gazed into the blue ones above him, then swerved to the scout.
For a few moments he lay quietly, while the scout removed the rope from his wrists and the girl removed her gauntlets and chafed his temples with her soft hands.
“Ugh!” grunted Little Cayuse suddenly. “White squaw got heap good heart; but Cayuse no squaw, him warrior.”
He sat up on the ground and began working his benumbed arms back and forth between his knees. In spite of his stoicism, he winced, and the scout saw that one of his shoulders was dislocated.
“Down on the ground again, Cayuse!” ordered the scout; “on your left side, boy.”
Cayuse tumbled over obediently, the scout standing astride his body and firmly gripping his right arm.
“Hold him down, Dell,” went on the scout.
With the girl pushing and the scout pulling, and Cayuse making no outcry whatever, the shoulder was slipped back into place.
Cayuse crawled to the wall of the defile and sat up with his back against it. His bare breast jumped with his hard breathing so that his necklace of bear-claws and elk-teeth fairly rattled, but a ghost of a smile flickered about his lips.
“Heap hard time,” said he. “Me no care. Umph! Me warrior; Pa-e-has-ka’s pard.”