“I don’t like the white hide o’ that cayuse, an’ that’s a fact.” He nibbled at the corner of a plug of tobacco as he spoke, and his words were a bit cut up. “’Paches are up, an’ they could spot the critter a mile.”
“Silver Heels is the best cayuse in Arizona, in spite of his color,” bristled Dell. “I’ll drop so far behind you, sergeant, that, if there are any ’Paches around, they’ll spot me and give you a chance to keep on.”
“I don’t like that, Miss Dauntless, nary mucho; but I’m the boy with despatches, so I can’t act like I would if I didn’t have ’em. Savvy?”
“Of course I understand. Your first duty is to get those despatches through. Never mind me.”
Patterson jerked his horse’s head out of the water-hole, kicked in the spurs, and pushed on up the ravine.
Dell, following by ear alone, allowed him to get well in the lead.
Another hour slipped past—an hour of scrambling through chaparral, and through Spanish bayonet and catsclaw, through dungeonlike gullies and up steep slopes; then followed another hour of passably easy traveling.
Dell was still behind, still following the sounds ahead.
For Patterson to lose her, trained as she was in ways of the trail, was impossible.
Disaster was hovering in the vicinity of the two, but it was not threatening them on account of the white cayuse.