e for Indians," she mused, frowning over an open space
where all was rock. "Injun Charlie would hunt tracks all day for a
dollar or two; only he'd make tracks just to prove himself the real
goods." She sighed, stood upon her tiptoes, and peered out over the sage
to get her bearings, then started on at a hazard. She went a few rods,
found herself in a thick tangle of brush through which she could not
force her way, started to back out, and caught her hair on a scraggly
scrub which seemed to have as many prongs as there are briers on a
rosebush. She was struggling there with her hands fumbling unavailingly
at the back of her bowed head, when she was pounced upon by someone or
something through the sage. She screamed.

"The--deuce!" Good Indian brought out the milder expletive with the flat
intonation which the unexpected presence of a lady frequently gives to
a man's speech. "Lucky I didn't take a shot at you through the bushes.
I did, almost, when I saw somebody moving here. Is this your favorite
place for a morning ramble?" He had one hand still upon her arm, and
he was laughing openly at her plight. But he sobered when he stooped a
little so that he could see her face, for there were tears in her eyes,
and Miss Georgie was not the sort of young woman whom one expects to
shed tears for slight cause.

"If you did it--and you must have--I don't see how you can laugh about
it, even if he is a crawling reptile of a man that ought to be hung!"
The tears were in her voice as well as her eyes, and there were reproach
and disappointment also.

"Did what--to whom--to where, to why?" Good Indian let go her arm, and
began helpfully striving with the scraggly scrub and its prongs. "Say,
I'll just about have to scalp you to get you loose. Would you mind very
much, Squaw-talk-far-off?" He ducked and peered into her face again, and
again his face sobered. "What's the matter?" he asked, in an entirely
different tone--which Miss Georgie, in spite of her mood, found less
satisfying than his banter.

"Saunders--OUCH; I'd as soon be scalped and done with, as to have you
pull out a hair at a time--Saunders crawled home with a bullet in his
ribs. And I thought--"

"Saunders!" Good Indian stared down at her, his hands dropped upon her
head.

Miss Georgie reached up, caught him by the wrists, and held him so while
she tilted her head that she might look up at him.

"Grant!" she cried softly. "He deserved it. You couldn't help it--he
w