“You remember Injun bucks last summer?” he asked, looking at the man who had rescued him from them.
“You bet I do!” returned Deadshot.
“Fool raider, him one—Scalping Louie.”
“Not really?” cried the cowmen, in amazement, for the name was that of a renegade redskin whose chief delight was to scalp helpless women and children, and for whom there was a reward offered by the Indian agent on the reservation from which he had escaped only a month or so before.
“That him, Scalping Louie,” repeated Nig. “Me just heard day, two day ago, he broke way from reserve again. That why me here.”
These words were uttered with such grim significance that the cowboys realized without the necessity of asking or being told that the old scout was on the trail of the Midnight Raider.
“Then you’ll help us run him down?” inquired Ki Yi, with a wink at his companion.
“Uhuh! Me go.”
“Good boy! Don’t bother to cook that bacon. Get up behind me and we’ll go back to the rest of the bunch and then you can eat all you want to,” exclaimed Deadshot, scarcely able to restrain his delight that the task he had feared might even necessitate a resort to force had been accomplished without the making of any promise or offer of reward.
“All right, me go. No need ride with you, got own pinto.”