Coming back to the waiting girl, he mounted.
“The Apaches, after the capture,” he announced, “went up the defile. They were on foot.”
“This was a good place for an ambush,” said Dell, turning in her saddle and looking back as they rode onward. “The Indians could have hidden behind boulders on both sides of the defile and sprung out on Little Cayuse as he passed.”
“It wouldn’t be like the boy to let himself get caught in such a trap. Still, it’s possible. You can trap a fox if you go about it right.”
“I’d like to know who those three white men are who are helping Bascomb and Bernritter.”
“Ruffians, I reckon, whom Bascomb managed to pick up. There are plenty of scoundrels loose in this part of the country who would help at anything if they got paid for it. The desert is full of white Arabs, as ready to slit a man’s throat as they are to eat a meal. You ought to know that, Dell.”
“I do, of course, and I haven’t any doubt but that it was easy for Bascomb and Bernritter to find men to help them in their villainy. Don’t you think, too, that they have spies in the Three-ply camp? Some one who found out Golightly was to leave, early this morning, to meet Annie at the Phœnix station?”
“Possibly. It has not been so very long, however, since Bernritter was a trusted superintendent at the camp. He must have known when Miss McGowan was expected. Armed with this knowledge, he and Bascomb laid their plans to capture the girl. They set their three masked men to watching the trail for the horses and the buckboard; and, even if McGowan himself had gone to meet the girl, instead of Golightly, the plan would have been carried out just as it was.”
This smaller defile, which the scout and the girl were ascending, had many angles and turns.
As the scout finished speaking, they rode around one of the turns and came upon a sight which brought them to an abrupt halt.
Horror rose in the girl’s eyes, and a gasp escaped her lips. She looked at the scout. His face wore an ominous frown.
Leaping out of the saddle, he hurried forward without a word.
Dell likewise dismounted and hastened after him.
The scout’s praise of Little Cayuse was well-deserved. The lad was brave and quick-witted, and prided himself on being a warrior, on having won an eagle-feather, and on knowing how to carry out the orders of Pa-e-has-ka.