“The fact is,” he exclaimed, “he fell and hurt himself in that tunnel he is digging; some rock fell on him, and——”
“Oh, he is dying! I know it. Why didn’t you tell me at once?”
“I didn’t want to scare you,” he answered.
“He is dying?”
“No, not so bad as that; but he is hurt, and I thought you ought to be out there. Girls are scared of the dark, you know, and so—well, I done the best I could. I didn’t want to make you feel bad, either; but I reckon the time for you to know it has come.”
She asked him again and again why he had not told her at first of the injury to her father, and urged him to give details; until, in replying to her, he had constructed such a piece of fiction that he felt rather proud of it and his abilities in that line.
Two or three miles from the town he was joined by half a dozen rough-looking riders, who peered at the girl from under their slouched hats in a way to make her uneasy. These wild figures fell in behind her and the supposed Buffalo Bill, as if they were the escort.
“Friends of mine,” said Panther Pete. “Some of the members of my band of scouts.”
“Oh, your scouts!” she said, much relieved.
“I’m the chief of the scouts, you know.”