“Yes?” the scout gasped.
“This is hard on you. Why not let go and end it all?”
“Never! The last ditch and the last breath always for me.”
“But the Apaches are coming—two of them. I can see them as I swing out and back. Once they looked over at me, and they acted queerly. It can only be a matter of a minute or two, at most. Why not cheat them of their intended prey?”
“No!” said the scout, his voice little more than a whisper.
“If I could release myself,” said Dell, “I would. If I were not hanging here, you could take care of the Indians and save your own life.”
Further response from the scout was impossible. His lips moved, but not a wisp of sound came through them.
He turned his eyes toward the redskins again. He saw, now, that they were coming down the trail on all fours, jumping and springing about on their hands and knees in a most unheard-of manner. Occasionally they would bump into each other, whereupon they would snarl and snap their teeth like wolves.
All at once one of them raised his face upward and yelped like a coyote. The next moment he leaped over the scout’s sprawled-out form and went on down the trail. The second Apache followed.
The scout was too wrought up to think much of this remarkable exhibition at the time. The principal point was, the Indians had spared him; and how much longer could he hold out against the dragging weight?