“Look out for him, Buffalo Bill!” exclaimed Dell. “He’s as venomous as a tiger-cat.” Dell’s bullet had struck the Apache in the thigh, making walking impossible. “We can’t bother with him,” said the scout. “There are four more reds around here, and they’ll probably happen along and take care of him. We’ll mount and keep on until we find Little Cayuse. I can’t understand what’s become of the boy. The Apache he was following was joined by four others; if he still continued to follow the Apaches, he ought to be somewhere in this vicinity.” “I should think,” hazarded Dell, “we ought to have met him before this.” “We ought to, and there must be some good reason why we haven’t. We’ll try and discover the reason.” The darkness of the gulch rendered difficult the task of looking for the stones Cayuse had been piling at irregular intervals. Nevertheless, the scout scanned every step of the way carefully, but without result. Meanwhile, as they rode, Dell kept a sharp watch for Indians. She saw none, so it was evident that the taste the Apaches had had of the scout’s resourcefulness had been sufficient to discourage them in their sniping tactics. As the scout spurred on, his alarm for Little Cayuse increased. “He’s plenty able to take care of himself,” the scout said to the girl, “but any one, I don’t care how wary and cautious, is apt to be caught napping, or taken at a disadvantage.” “He’s an Indian, and only a boy. It doesn’t seem to me that the Apaches would be very hard on him even if they did capture him.” “He’s a Piute, Dell, and the Piutes and Apaches haven’t any use for each other. Then, apart from their tribal hostility, I suppose the Apaches are smarting to play even for what happened at the Three-ply Mine the other day. They lost a couple of warriors during that fight. They know Cayuse is a pard of mine, and that it was owing to myself and my pards that the fight went against them. The fact that Cayuse is a boy wouldn’t cause the Apaches to have any mercy on him.” The gulch walls widened by degrees as they continued on. This allowed more sunlight to come into the defile and made the surroundings plainer. “The Apaches must have doubled back on their trail,” Dell suggested, “or else Cayuse never followed them this far.” “It’s about an even chance whether the Apaches have doubled back, or whether something went wrong with Cayuse farther down the gulch. If we don’t pick up another clue pretty soon, we’ll about face and double back on our own trail.” At that moment the scout’s attention was attracted to another defile opening into the left wall of the one they were following. It was a narrow break in the lavalike crust of the earth, and, inasmuch as its trend was due east and west, the sun penetrated it to the bottom. It is doubtful whether the scout would have paid much attention to the defile had the sunlight not rested upon some object which flashed in his eyes. The wide-awake Dell caught the flash as quickly as did the scout.