She took the girl’s hand, bent over, and touched her lips to her forehead. Wah-coo-tah’s eyes softened under the caress.
“Me no hate you any more,” the Indian girl whispered. “Wah-coo-tah all same Yellow Hair’s friend.”
Just then the scout came back from the edge of the shelf and noticed, with much satisfaction, the friendliness of the two girls toward each other.
“We’re on a little ledge, half-way up the cañon wall,” he announced. “From the edge of the shelf I could look down on the ore-dump and shaft of the Forty Thieves. The flood has been ’way over the top of the dump, for the platform, and the stones are dripping wet, but the water is receding rapidly.”
“How are we to get away from here?” asked Dell.
“There’s a bridle-path to the top of the cañon and another one to the bottom, but I think we had better get out by the top of the cañon and take that route to Sun Dance. There’s no telling how much water we would find between here and the camp if we tried to follow the bottom of the gulch. Our first move must be to get the horses from the gully. I suppose it will be best to leave you here, Dell, to stay with Wah-coo-tah, while I go for the horses.”
“I will take care of Wah-coo-tah, pard,” returned Dell, pressing the Indian girl’s hand affectionately as she spoke. “You ought to find Cayuse in the gully.”
“Wherever the horses are, I think I am pretty certain to find the boy. Whenever he is told to do a thing, he generally does it, so I feel confident he has stayed with the live stock. I won’t be gone long,” the scout added, as he took to the bridle-path and began the ascent.
In mounting to the top of the cañon the scout was able to observe below him the extent of the flood which had been turned into the defile by the blasting operations of Captain Lawless.
A line on the opposite wall of the gulch showed him the height the water had reached, and indicated how quickly the Forty Thieves would have been flooded had not the curtain of rock been thrown across the top of the shaft.