The
Indian lad came forth into the light again, empty-handed; plucked at
Lola's gown, pointed to Natzie, for the moment forgotten, now urgently
beckoning. Bending low, they ran to her. She was pointing across the
deep gorge that opened a way to the southward. Something far down
toward its yawning mouth had caught her eager eye, and grasping the
arm of the lad with fingers that twitched and burned, she whispered in
the Apache tongue:
"They're coming."
One long look the boy gave in the direction pointed, then, backing
away from the edge, he quickly swept away a Navajo blanket that hung
from the protruding branches of a low cedar, letting the broad light
into the cavelike space beyond. There, on a hard couch of rock, skin,
and blanket, lay a fevered form in rough scouting dress. There, with
pinched cheeks, and eyes that heavily opened, dull and suffused, lay
the soldier officer who had ridden forth to rescue and to save,
himself now a crippled and helpless captive. Beside him, wringing out
a wet handkerchief and spreading it on the burning forehead, knelt
Angela. The girls who faced each other for the first time at the
pool--the daughter of the Scotch-American captain--the daughter of the
Apache Mohave chief--were again brought into strange companionship
over the unconscious form of the soldier Blakely.
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