Rescued and rescuers rode out of the canon as soon as the Apaches had
been driven away. Nobody suggested that the Indians who had been killed
in the surprise attack be buried. The bodies were left lying where they
had fallen. For in those days no frontiersman ever buried a dead
redskin. If the body happened to be inconveniently near a house, a
mounted cowboy roped one foot and dragged it to a distance. Those were
the years when all settlers agreed that the only good Indian was a dead
Indian. The Indian wars are over now, and a new generation can safely
hold a more humane view; but old-timers in the Panhandle will tell you
to-day that the saying was literally true.
The little group of riders drew out of the gorge and climbed the shale
slide to the plain above. Roberts rode knee to knee with Dinsmore. On
the other side of the outlaw was Jumbo. The man between them still
carried his rifle and his revolver, but he understood without being told
that he was a prisoner.
Wadley dropped back from his place beside Ramona and ranged up beside
the officer.
"What are you aimin' to do with him, Jack?" he asked in a low voice.
"I'm goin' to turn him over to Cap Ellison."
The cattleman pondered that awhile before he continued. "'Mona has been
tellin' me about you an' her, Jack. I ain't got a word to say--not a
word. If you're the man she wants, you're sure the man she'll get. But I
want to tell you that you're a lucky young scamp. You don't deserve her.
I've got to see the man yet that does."
"We're not goin' to quarrel about that, Mr. Wadley," agreed Jack. "I'm
nothin' but a rough cowboy, an' she's the salt of the earth. I don't see
what she sees in me."
"H'm!" grunted the owner of the A T O, and looked at the lithe, brown,
young fellow, supple as a whip and strong as tested steel. It was not
hard to understand what a girl saw in him. "Glad you got sense enough to
know that."
"I'm not a plumb fool, you know."
Clint changed the subject apparently. "Boy, I've been in hell ever since
Sullivan rode in with the bad news. My God! how I suffered till I saw my
little trick standing there alive and well."
The Ranger nodded. He thought he knew what Wadley was driving toward.
But he was resolved to give him no help. He must make his own plea.
"You helped save her, Jack. That's all right. I reckon you care for her
too. Any man would 'a' done what you did. But Dinsmore, he did a whole
lot more 'n you. When he was hotfooting it to escape from you, he
turned round an' started to bring her back to the ranch. Steve Gurley,
he said to take 'Mona along with 'em to the canon. You know what that
hellhound meant. But Dinsmore wouldn't stand for that. He said she was
entitled to be took home. Well, you know how the 'Paches cut 'em off."
"Yes. That's how we figured it out," said Roberts.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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