“That’s the way it is,” he assured her, solemn as a pouter.

She bit her lip to keep from laughing out, but on the heels of her mirth came a swift reproach.  In his knowledge of life he might be a boy, but in one way at least he had proved himself a man.  He had taken his life in his hands and ridden to save her without a second thought.  He had fought a good fight, one that would be a story worth telling when she had become an old woman with grandchildren at her knee.

“Does your foot hurt you much?” she asked gently.

“It sort o’ keeps my memory jogged up.  It’s a kind of forget-me-not souvenir, for a good boy, compliments of a Mescalero buck, name unknown, probably now permanently retired from his business of raisin’ Cain.  But it might be a heap worse.  They would’ve been glad to collect our scalps if it hadn’t been onconvenient, I expect.”

“Yes,” she agreed gravely.

He sat up abruptly.  “Say, what about Billie?  I left him wounded outside.  Did yore folks find him?”

“Yes.  It seems the Apaches trapped them in the stable.  They roped horses and came straight for the canon.  They found Mr. Prince, but they had no time to stop then.  Father is looking after him now.  He said he was going to take him to the house in the buckboard.”

“Is he badly hurt?”

“Jean thinks he will be all right.  Mr. Prince told him it was only a flesh wound, but the muscles were so paralysed he couldn’t get around.”

“The bullet did not strike an artery, then?”

“My brother seemed to think not.”

“I reckon there’s no doctor near.”

Her eyes twinkled.  “Not very near.  Our nearest neighbor lives on the Pecos one hundred land seventeen miles away.  But my father is as good as a doctor any day of the week.”

“Likely you don’t borrow coffee next door when you run out of it onexpected.  But don’t you get lonesome?”

“Haven’t time,” she told him cheerfully.  “Besides, somebody going through stops off every three or four months.  Then we learn all the news.”

Jimmie glanced at her shyly and looked quickly away.  This girl was not like any woman he had known.  Most of them were drab creatures with the spirit washed out of them.  His sister had been an exception.  She had had plenty of vitality, good looks and pride, but the somber shadow of her environment had not made for gayety.  It was different with Pauline Roubideau.  Though she had just escaped from terrible danger, laughter bubbled up in her soft throat, mirth rippled over her mobile little face.  She expressed herself with swift, impulsive gestures at times.  Then again she suggested an inheritance of slow grace from the Southland of her mother.