“You can’t.” “Why not?” “Because I won’t go.” “That’s you, an’ right spunky, I must say; but look! D’you understand that we’re in hostile country?” “Certainly.” “An’ that we’ll have to hike through the bear-grass an’ scrub, leavin’ the trail to wind along its unfollered way?” “Sure I do.” “Think ye kin stand it?” “If I can’t, sergeant, you can drop me by the wayside.” “Drop ye I’ll have to, then, kase I’m kerryin’ despatches that have got to git through. But I can’t take time to send you back, and I can’t waste any more chinnin’ here. I’d feel mighty bad if any harm happened to ye, but my bizness is important. Drop in behind if ye’re bound to come.” Curtly enough--for Patterson was thinking of the important work before him, and, truth to tell, hated to be bothered with a trailing “petticoat”--the messenger spurred onward, dropping the loop of his carbine-strap over the pommel as he went. Where the trail entered the scrub he entered it, pointing up a slope and turning southward again on the crest of a divide. For an hour Dell followed, searching with her eyes to right and left as did Patterson, and listening intently for sounds that might indicate skulking Apaches. Drawing to a halt in a ravine, where thirsty deer had gouged a water-hole, while the horses were taking a few swallows of water, Patterson spoke for the first time since leaving the Beaver. “I don’t like the white hide o’ that cayuse, an’ that’s a fact.” He nibbled at the corner of a plug of tobacco as he spoke, and his words were a bit cut up. “’Paches are up, an’ they could spot the critter a mile.” “Silver Heels is the best cayuse in Arizona, in spite of his color,” bristled Dell. “I’ll drop so far behind you, sergeant, that, if there are any ’Paches around, they’ll spot me and give you a chance to keep on.” “I don’t like that, Miss Dauntless, nary _mucho_; but I’m the boy with despatches, so I can’t act like I would if I didn’t have ’em. Savvy?” “Of course I understand. Your first duty is to get those despatches through. Never mind me.” Patterson jerked his horse’s head out of the water-hole, kicked in the spurs, and pushed on up the ravine. Dell, following by ear alone, allowed him to get well in the lead. Another hour slipped past--an hour of scrambling through chaparral, and through Spanish bayonet and catsclaw, through dungeonlike gullies and up steep slopes; then followed another hour of passably easy traveling. Dell was still behind, still following the sounds ahead. For Patterson to lose her, trained as she was in ways of the trail, was impossible. Disaster was hovering in the vicinity of the two, but it was not threatening them on account of the white cayuse.