“I’ll tell ye. I first put an end to the two greasers what guarded the boys, hyar, an’ then I sneaked around for the girl, fur one o’ these chaps wouldn’t budge a peg ’thout her. I found her nest empty, an’ I knew that you had a hand in the pie. I knew that you would take my horse, because you’ve wanted him for these several years. I daren’t go back to the corral, for I thought I would run ag’in’ you, and there’d hev been a game blocked. We caught Pawnee horses on the prairie, and struck out for the Platte.”
“But how did you know that I would ride southward?”
“I knew your situation, Tom Kyle. The Pawnees hev told me about the volcano that they were manufacturin’ beneath your feet, and I knew that you had good inducements to join the Apaches. So we came here and waited. This is the old Apache trail. You war a fool for takin’ it to-night.”
“I know it,” said the renegade; “but what can’t be cured must be endured, I suppose.”
“It seems so; but we must be movin’. Allow me to tie your hands.”
The Pale Pawnee submitted to the operation with muttered curses.
Then he was placed upon the horse, which the trapper had ridden from the Pawnee village, and his legs were lashed to the sinewy girth.
“Where are you going?” he asked, as Frontier Shack vaulted upon the back of his favorite steed once more.
“To Fort Kearney.”
A pallor flitted across the renegade’s face.