“Now I’ll tell ye,” he said; “and mebbe you won’t think it’s so bad. I was your friend from the very first, but didn’t darst show it. The men wanted you, and wanted your emeralds. What become of the emeralds I don’t know, and jes’ now I don’t know where the other men aire. They was scattered in that rumpus with the Injuns. You recollect the Injuns, and what fools we was, in ridin’ up on ’em?”
He stroked his beard, ruminating.
“The boys was scattered by the Injuns. I got one of the Injun ponies, and we come here on it; and I reckon we’re safe enough fer a while.”
“Won’t you leave me here,” she begged, “or take me back to my friends?”
“What friends?”
“Mr. Cody, and—and the men who were with him. You don’t know where Bruce Clayton is?”
“Nary, I don’t. He was with our crowd, when the Injuns hit us; but where he went, and what become of him, I don’t know no more than you do.” He inspected the meat. “Won’t you have somethin’ to eat?” he asked, taking it from the fire and poking into it with his knife. “This belonged to the Injun that owned the mustang, but I reckon as he meant to eat it himself he didn’t pizen it. You look’s if you needed to eat somethin’.”
“I couldn’t swallow a mouthful,” she protested. “Won’t you please let me go, and let me try to find my way back?”
“That’s foolish, don’t ye think? Better eat some o’ this meat. It’s good, and you need the stren’th it’ll give ye. Let me carve ye out a bit of it.”
She protested again that she could not eat.