“The animals don’t like it, either,” commented Dell.
“I don’t blame them,” said Buffalo Bill, “but water is water in this region, and, as Cayuse says, if it’s wet, neither man nor beast should demand more.”
The horses, freed of their saddles, were roped out in the scant grass which grew along the overflow from the pool. While they grazed, the scout and his companions took their first meal off their rations.
Dell, with a piece of jerked meat in one hand and a cracker in the other, leaned back against a rock and became exceedingly loquacious.
“Lawn-tennis!” she exclaimed. “It’s all the go at the post, Nomad—I mean Buffalo Bill. It’s a great game, for those who like it. They play it on snow-shoes—I should say overshoes——” She stopped with a grimacing twist of her pretty face. “What am I trying to say, anyhow?” she demanded.
“Pass the ante, Lolita—I mean Dell,” Buffalo Bill returned, and wondered why he could feel no surprise at the way both he and the girl were handling their English.
“I thought you were Buffalo Bill, for a minute,” cried Dell, almost choking with laughter.
“So did I,” roared the scout. Then added, quite serious: “I wonder who’s running this baille, anyhow?”
“That’s one too many for me,” answered Dell. “Who owns the honkatonk? Where’s the music?”
Little Cayuse, leaping up suddenly, raised his arms high and held up his head. He began to mutter, and the muttering gave way to a sort of crooning song: