Page:Cherokee Trails (1928).pdf/95

 The man who had remained near their fallen leader was off his horse. He signaled to his comrades as they galloped back toward him; one of them caught the spare horse and took it back, while the other wheeled and faced Simpson to cover their operations. Simpson stopped shooting, not caring to do any further damage since Frank had made it safely through the gate.

They were loading the fallen man on the riderless horse. From the way they handled him Simpson judged he was through. They slung him across the saddle as they would have thrown the carcase of a calf, lashing him on with a rope. Simpson allowed them to depart without a shot to quicken them when they started away driving the horse with its limber burden ahead. In a few moments they were out of sight beyond the hill.

Simpson turned, meeting the girl face to face. She had picked up the rifle and had been cramming cartridges into its magazine. Now she stopped, seeing there was no further call for arms. Her eyes were still bright with the fire of combat, and she was breathing with a jerky little sound of hysteria as if about to cry.

"It will be all right, I fancy," Simpson said, in the fatuous way of one speaking when nothing that can be said will quite come up to the emergency.

"You saved my horse!" she said, the quaver of unexpressed gratitude in her tone. "I never could have got here in time."

"It will be quite all right, I am sure," he said, but not very convincingly, for he was far from sure whether it would be so.

"They didn't want you at all—they wanted that little