“It is the buffalo signal,” I said to her.  “They are going to hunt, and their hunt will be in the opposite direction from us.  That is good.”

We crept back from the top of the ridge, and I asked her to bring me the saddle blanket while I held the horse.  This I bound fast around the horse’s head.

“Why do you blind the poor fellow?” she inquired, “He cannot eat, he will starve.  Besides, we ought to be getting away from here as fast as we can.”

“I tie up his head so that he cannot see, or smell, and so fall to neighing to the other horses,” I explained to her.  “As to getting away, our trail would show plainly on this wet ground.  All the trail we left yesterday has been wiped out; so that here is our very safest place, if they do not happen to run across the head of this little draw.  Besides, we can still eat; and besides again—­” perhaps I staggered a little as I stood.

“You are weak!” she exclaimed.  “You are ill!”

“I must admit,” said I, “that I could probably not travel far.  If I dared tell you to go on alone and leave me, I would command you to do so.”

Her face was pale.  “What is wrong?” she asked.  “Is it a fever?  Is it your wound again?”

“It is fever,” I answered thickly.  “My head is bad.  I do not see distinctly.  If you please, I think I will lie down for a time.”

I staggered blindly now as I walked.  I felt her arm under mine.  She led me to our little fireside, knelt on the wet ground beside me as I sat, my head hanging dully.  I remember that her hands were clasped.  I recall the agony on her face.

The day grew warmer as the sun arose.  The clouds hung low and moved rapidly under the rising airs.  Now and again I heard faint sounds, muffled, far off.  “They are firing,” I muttered.  “They are among the buffalo.  That is good.  Soon they will go away.”

I do not remember much of what I said after that, and recall only that my head throbbed heavily, and that I wanted to lie down and rest.  And so, some time during that morning, I suppose, I did lie down, and once more laid hold upon the hand of Mystery.

I do not wish to speak of what followed after that.  For me, a, merciful ignorance came; but what that poor girl must have suffered, hour after hour, night after night, day after day, alone, without shelter, almost without food, in such agony of terror as might have been natural even had her solitary protector been possessed of all his faculties—­I say I cannot dwell upon that, because it makes the cold sweat stand on my face even now to think of it.  So I will say only that one time I awoke.  She told me later that she did not know whether it was two or three days we had been there thus.  She told me that now and then she left me and crept to the top of the ridge to watch the Indian camp.  She saw them come in from the chase, their horses loaded with meat.  Then, as the sun came out, they went to drying meat, and the squaws began to scrape