Dell yearned to be asking Cayuse questions about Buffalo Bill, and old Nomad, and the rescue of Bascomb by Geronimo’s bucks, but she knew that Cayuse just then would not talk.
It was close on to an hour later that the boy called a halt. They had reached a water-hole. Probably Cayuse would not have halted even then had he not discovered that Patterson was in a pitiable condition of weakness, and that Dell was obliged to ride at his side and support him with her arm.
“Ugh!” said Cayuse, slipping from Navi’s back. “Pony-soldier heap bad hurt. We give um little rest. No like make um stop, but we got to.”
Patterson was unroped from his saddle and lifted down.
After he had been stretched out beside the water-hole, Cayuse unbuckled the belt and pulled aside the blouse and the clothing beneath.
Removing the red-soaked handkerchief, he lowered his eyes to within a few inches of the wound, and examined it as well as the moonlight would permit.
Presently he began probing with his fingers--a painful process which the unconscious trooper could not feel.
“Him plenty bad hurt, Yellow Hair,” said Cayuse, “but bullet him no stay in wound. Umph! Me fix um.”
Going to the edge of the water. Cayuse wrung out the handkerchief; then, coming back, he bathed the wound.
From a medicine-bag swinging at his belt he took a brown powder and sprinkled it plentifully over the wound. Next the medicine-bag yielded a compactly rolled strip of soft doeskin. The strip was unrolled and passed completely around Patterson’s body, the ends brought tightly together and fastened with a long, sharp thorn. The clothing was then replaced over the wound and a drink from the boy’s canteen was forced between the sergeant’s lips.
Complete rest, assisted by the cooling draft, soon caused Patterson’s wits to return.
“Where’s the despatches?” were his first words.
“They’re safe, sergeant,” said Dell reassuringly.
“I’ve got you to thank for that, Miss Dauntless.”
“We’ve both got Little Cayuse to thank for it.”
“The Indian boy beside you. He is Buffalo Bill’s pard.”
“Then he must be the clear quill,” muttered Patterson. “Any pard o’ Buffler Bill’s is ace-high with me. How did he happen to be around that hogback?”
“That’s just what I want to know,” said Dell. “From the despatch the colonel received, I supposed that Buffalo Bill, Nomad, and Cayuse were with the escort taking Bascomb from Phœnix to Fort Apache. That despatch said that all the escort had been killed by Geronimo and his hostiles, but I had a feeling that the murderous work could not have extended to the scout and his pards.”