“No like um yellow hair squaw,” she said savagely.
“What harm have I ever done you, Wah-coo-tah?” asked Dell.
“Huh!” said the Indian girl scornfully, hunching up her shoulders and folding her arms. “Me like um Pa-e-has-ka; you like um.”
At that a light dawned on the scout. He could scarcely believe the evidence of his senses. As soon as he became certain there was no mistake, an amused laugh broke from his lips. He would have laughed had his situation been ten times as perilous as it was.
A faint smile curved around Dell’s red lips. Wah-coo-tah, watching and listening with catlike vigilance, lashed herself into another burst of temper.
“Me come here to kill Yellow Hair!” she cried. “Me watch up top o’ ground; me see her come down shaft; then me pull up rope, come by secret door into tunnel.”
Like a panther, Wah-coo-tah flung herself toward Dell.
With a quick move, the scout placed himself in Wah-coo-tah’s way. Her lifted knife dropped until the point touched his breast, and she stood in front of him with flashing eyes and heaving bosom, a living picture of murderous hate.
“There, there, Wah-coo-tah,” said the scout, reaching up his hands and unclasping her fingers from the knife. “You’re making a big mistake.” He took the weapon from her resisting grasp and slid it into his pocket. “You don’t understand the situation at all. Yellow Hair Pa-e-has-ka’s pard, all same Nomad, Wild Bill, and Little Cayuse. Wah-coo-tah Pa-e-has-ka’s pard, too. Sabe?”
The girl was only half-convinced, only half-placated.