“I reckon we’ll see then where she’s hurt,” muttered Red King.

Evidently Neale thought the same, for he was plainly afraid to place her on her back.

“Slingerland, she’s not such a little girl,” he said, irrelevantly.  Then he slipped his hands under her arms again.  Suddenly he felt something wet and warm and sticky.  He pulled a hand out.  It was blood-stained.

“Aw!” exclaimed Red.

“Son, what’d you expect?” demanded Slingerland.  “She got shot or cut, an’ in her fright she crawled in thar.  Come, over with her.  Let’s see.  She might live.”

This practical suggestion acted quickly upon Neale.  He turned the girl over so that her head lay upon his knees.  The face thus exposed was deathly pale, set like stone in horror.  The front of her dress was a bloody mass, and her hands were red.

“Stabbed in the breast!” exclaimed King.

“No,” replied Slingerland.  “If she’d been stabbed she’d been scalped, too.  Mebbe thet blood comes from an arrow an’ she might hev pulled it out.”

Neale bent over her with swift scrutiny.  “No cut or hole in her dress!”

“Boys, thar ain’t no marks on her—­only thet blood,” added Slingerland, hopefully.

Neale tore open the front of her blouse and slipped his hand in upon her breast.  It felt round, soft, warm under his touch, but quiet.  He shook his head.

“Those moans I heard must have been her last dying breaths,” he said.

“Mebbe.  But she shore doesn’t look daid to me,” replied King.  “I’ve seen daid people.  Put your hand on her heart.”

Neale had been feeling for heart pulsations on her right side.  He shifted his hand.  Instantly through the soft swell of her breast throbbed a beat-beat-beat.  The beatings were regular and not at all faint.

“Good Lord, what a fool I am!” he cried.  “She’s alive!  Her heart’s going!  There’s not a wound on her!”

“Wal, we can’t see any, thet’s sure,” replied Slingerland.

“She might hev a fatal hurt, all the same,” suggested King.

“No!” exclaimed Neale.  “That blood’s from some one else—­most likely her murdered mother....  Red, run for some water.  Fetch it in your hat.  Slingerland, ride after the troops.”

Slingerland rose and mounted his horse.  “Wal, I’ve an idee.  Let’s take the girl to my cabin.  Thet’s not fur from hyar.  It’s a long ride to the camp.  An’ if she needs the troop doctor we can fetch him to my place.”

“But the Sioux?”

“Wal, she’d be safer with me.  The Injuns an’ me are friends.”

“All right.  Good.  But you ride after the troops, anyhow, and tell Dillon about the girl—­that we’re going to your cabin.”  Slingerland galloped away after the dust cloud down the trail.