“Ugh,” grunted Cayuse; “Pa-e-has-ka make Piute boy feel like squaw with string of glass beads.”
“Ye’re a desarvin’ little feller,” said Hank Tenny, “an’ I’d be tickled ter death ef I had ye fer a pard o’ mine. But you must like the scout er heap er ye wouldn’t hev tried ter tag arter him on the long trail.”
Cayuse bent his head and made no reply to this. Nor did the scout make any comment. What each felt was locked in his own breast.
True to his word, on the following day the scout, Wild Bill, and Nomad returned to the mine and hived themselves up in it for three days and nights. They beguiled the time with “seven-up.”
Nothing went wrong with them at all, and Dell rode out every day to report how Wah-coo-tah was getting along. The Indian girl continued steadily to improve.
While at the mine the mechanism that worked the “rock curtain” was examined by the pards and found to be very cleverly contrived. They all decided that it had been placed in the shaft for the purpose the scout had already supposed, viz: to keep out of the mine any floods that might come down from above.
When the scout and his pards returned to Sun Dance, the scout took his deed, made out another in the name of Wah-coo-tah Lawless, and sent both to Montegordo to be recorded. He did this with the entire approval of all his pards.
“And now,” said Wild Bill, when the deed had been duly executed, recorded, and delivered, “we still have Lawless to find and lay by the heels.”
“We can’t make any plans about that,” answered the scout, “until we learn whether Lawless got over the effects of Blake’s bullet or not.”