She understood him.  She realized the meaning of his words.  Then, with a low, agonized, and broken cry she shut her eyes tight and reached blindly out with both hands; she screamed aloud.  Shock claimed her again.  Horror and fear convulsed her, and it must have been fear that was uppermost.  She clutched Neale with fingers of steel, in a grip he could not have loosened without breaking her bones.

“Red, you saw—­she was right in her mind for a moment—­you saw?” burst out Neale.

“Shore I saw.  She’s only scared now,” replied King.  “It must hev been hell fer her.”

At this juncture Slingerland came riding up to them.  “Did she come around?” he inquired, curiously gazing at the girl as she clung to Neale.

“Yes, for a moment,” replied Neale.

“Wal, thet’s good....  I caught up with Dillon.  Told him.  He was mighty glad we found her.  Cussed his troopers some.  Said he’d explain your absence, an’ we could send over fer anythin’.”

“Let’s go, then,” said Neale.  He tried to loosen the girl’s hold on him, but had to give it up.  Taking her in his arms, he rose and went toward his horse.  King had to help him mount with his burden.  Neale did not imagine he would ever forget that spot, but he took another long look to fix the scene indelibly on his memory.  The charred wagons, the graves, the rocks over which the naked, gashed bodies had been flung, the three scraggy trees close together, and the ledge with the dark aperture at the base—­he gazed at them all, and then turned his horse to follow Slingerland.

6

Some ten miles from the scene of the massacre and perhaps fifteen from the line surveyed by the engineers, Slingerland lived in a wild valley in the heart of the Wyoming hills.

The ride there was laborsome and it took time, but Neale scarcely noted either fact.  He paid enough attention to the trail to fix landmarks and turnings in his mind, so that he would remember how to find the way there again.  He was, however, mostly intent upon the girl he was carrying.

Twice that he knew of her eyes opened during the ride.  But it was to see nothing and only to grip him tighter, if that were possible.  Neale began to imagine that he had been too hopeful.  Her body was a dead weight and cold.  Those two glimpses he had of her opened eyes hurt him.  What should he do when she did come to herself?  She would be frantic with horror and grief and he would be helpless.  In a case like hers it might have been better if she had been killed.

The last mile to Slingerland’s lay through a beautiful green valley with steep sides almost like a canon—­trees everywhere, and a swift, clear brook running over a bed of smooth rock.  The trail led along this brook up to where the valley boxed and the water boiled out of a great spring in a green glade overhung by bushy banks and gray rocks above.  A rude cabin with a red-stone chimney and clay-chinked cracks between the logs, stuffed to bursting with furs and pelts and horns and traps, marked the home of the trapper.