“He is,” averred the scout. “He is not only immune from what is called ‘fear,’ but he has also a clever brain, and never fails to use it. I did not tell him to leave a clue as to where he had gone, or to leave a trail for us to follow; yet we have found the clue, and you can depend on it we will find some sort of a trail.” “I’d like to know him,” said Dell. “Having trained with you so long, he has probably adopted some of your methods. Ah!” she finished, her eyes on the flinty earth of the arroyo’s bottom, “the Apache was mounted.” “I had already discovered that,” said the scout, “but I’d like to have you tell me how you know the Apache was mounted. The soil is too hard for hoof-marks.” The girl slipped from her saddle and pointed to a stone. The stone had been overturned, with the stained part that had been lying next the earth now uppermost. “A horse kicked that stone over,” said she. “No moccasined Indian ever did it, traveling afoot.” “Right,” said the scout; and, like Nomad’s, his first impressions of the girl began to change. “Besides,” smiled the girl, getting back into her saddle, “near that heap of quartz the mesquit brush had been nibbled by a horse’s teeth.” “That’s what proved to me that the Apache left a horse by the bushes when he climbed up the rise and unloosed the arrow. I see you’re wise to the trail. There’s a pleasure for me in reading such signs.” “For me, too.” After a few minutes of steady riding, the arroyo divided itself into two branches. Well within the right-hand branch were three pieces of quartz, laid in a line as the other two had been. “What would you argue from that, Dell?” queried the scout. “Why,” answered the girl, “I should say that Little Cayuse followed the right-hand fork.” “Anything else?” “And that the Apache had been joined by another.” “Right again. Can you shoot?” “A little,” Dell answered diffidently. “I can throw a rope, or a knife, too--after a fashion. I have had entire charge of the Double D Ranch ever since my father died, three years ago.” Her voice quivered a little, but almost instantly she put her emotion from her. The scout made no answer. Slowly Dell Dauntless was revealing herself to him as a spirited and capable young woman. As they progressed up the right-hand fork of the arroyo, the walls grew higher and steeper, giving the defile almost the appearance of a gulch. They passed more fragments of quartz, the number having been added to until, at the last, there were six pieces. “There are more Apaches joining the one who shot the arrow,” said Buffalo Bill, “and----” The last word was clipped short by an incisive report, the whistle of a bullet, a flapping of the brim of Dell’s brown sombrero, and a little spout of sand between Silver Heels and Bear Paw. If Dell Dauntless was startled she did not show it. “A poor shot,” she commented, taking off her hat and looking at the brim.