Again and again she essayed to shoot, but each time she failed. The two remaining Apaches were leaping toward her, coming up under cover of the wounded sergeant. Flinging aside the carbine, Dell once more fell back on her revolvers. But to use these smaller arms without hurt to Patterson was well-nigh impossible. The Apaches, who appeared originally to have numbered four, and undoubtedly were a small detachment from Geronimo’s main band, had lost two of their number. This fact not only rendered them murderously vindictive, but exceedingly wary. By approaching the girl from the side on which Patterson and his horse were standing, they could shield themselves. The sergeant, unable to make a single defensive move in his weakened condition, saw the Indians and understood their maneuver. The situation brought another groan from his lips. “I’m liable to prove the death o’ ye,” he muttered. “Cast loose from me an’ hike! There’s a chance yet.” “No!” cried Dell. Pulling Silver Heels backward, Dell sought to find an opening for a shot; but the two Apaches moved forward as she moved back, and thus frustrated her plans. In the midst of the maneuvering, the unexpected happened, taking form in the crack of a rifle from the bushes below the hogback. One of the two remaining Apaches dropped his rifle and staggered. Again the unseen marksman launched a bullet. This time the second of the two Apaches stiffened in his tracks for a moment, then crumpled to his knees. The other, without lingering further, whirled about and plunged down the slope and into the chaparral. The astounded Dell strained her eyes toward the point from which the unexpected shots had come. “A friend in need, Patterson!” she cried. The sergeant’s head was hanging forward. He heard Dell’s words, and made a response, but his voice was too low and mumbling for the girl to understand what he said. The Apache on his knees had straightened out along the rocky slope. An instant later a form came bounding up out of the shadows, paused at the Apache’s side an instant, then came on to Dell and the sergeant. Dell’s amazement increased as the newcomer came more and more into the light of the hogback’s crest. He was not a white man, but an Indian--a slender, lithely built boy, bare to the waist, his nether limbs clad in buckskins and moccasins. An eagle-feather ornamented his scalp-lock, and he carried a small repeating rifle. “Ugh!” he exclaimed, halting close to Dell. “Yellow Hair, Pa-e-has-ka’s girl-pard!” “Little Cayuse!” cried Dell, her surprise and delight throbbing in her voice. A moment more and she was down from her saddle and had caught the little Piute in a swift embrace. Little Cayuse deemed it derogatory to the pride of a warrior to let himself be betrayed into any show of affection. His feelings the boy tried strenuously to keep in check at all times. And, as he frowned upon any display of feelings by himself, he looked askance at it in others.