The girl started for the level, but halted and turned back.
“Yellow Hair make um promise to leave Buffalo Bill, huh, if I save um?” she said quickly.
“Yes, yes,” returned Dell. “Only be quick!”
Wah-coo-tah raced into the level and along it toward the breast. The stones had stopped falling by that time, and the scout and Dell, with the candle, hastened to follow the Indian girl.
Suddenly, as they ran around a sharp angle of the corridor, they saw Wah-coo-tah. She stood in a blaze of light that poured over her from a square opening in the wall. She cried out something, and tried to push into the opening, but she was met by a clattering volley of shots, and reeled backward with a groan. Then, silently, the door closed over the glare, and only the gleam of the scout’s candle lighted the level.
“They’ve shot her!” murmured Dell; “Lawless has shot his own daughter!”
“Perhaps not Lawless, but some of his men!” returned the scout. “Oh, the fiends! the dastards! They thought she was helping us, and that is the way they took to stop it.”
Running to the girl’s side, the scout knelt down. A trickle of red was running over the girl’s breast. The catamount skin, which she had worn over her back, had fallen off.
“Wah-coo-tah,” said the scout gently, “are you hurt?”
“Me live to fool um yet!” answered Wah-coo-tah spasmodically. “You help me, Pa-e-has-ka! Quick! Take me to shaft.”