“Wal, we’re hyar,” sung out Slingerland, and in the cheery tones there was something which told that the place was indeed home to him.

“Shore is a likely-lookin’ camp,” drawled Red, throwing his bridle.  “Been heah a long time, thet cabin.”

“Me an’ my pard was the first white men in these hyar hills,” replied Slingerland.  “He’s gone now.”  Then he turned to Neale.  “Son, you must be tired.  Thet was a ways to carry a girl nigh onto dead....  Look how white!  Hand her down to me.”

The girl’s hands slipped nervelessly and limply from their hold upon Neale.  Slingerland laid her on the grass in a shady spot.  The three men gazed down upon her, all sober, earnest, doubtful.

“I reckon we can’t do nothin’ but wait,” said the trapper.

Red King shook his head as if the problem were beyond him.

Neale did not voice his thought, yet he wanted to be the first person her eyes should rest upon when she did return to consciousness.

“Wal, I’ll set to work an’ clean out a place fer her,” said Slingerland.

“We’ll help,” rejoined Neale.  “Red, you have a look at the horses.”

“I’ll slip the saddles an’ bridles,” replied King, “an’ let ’em go.  Hosses couldn’t be chased out of heah.”

Slingerland’s cabin consisted really of two adjoining cabins with a door between, one part being larger and of later construction.  Evidently he used the older building as a storeroom for his pelts.  When all these had been removed the room was seen to be small, with two windows, a table, and a few other crude articles of home-made furniture.  The men cleaned this room and laid down a carpet of deer hides, fur side up.  A bed was made of a huge roll of buffalo skins, flattened and shaped, and covered with Indian blankets.  When all this had been accomplished the trapper removed his fur cap, scratched his grizzled head, and appealed to Neale and King.

“I reckon you can fetch over some comfortable-like necessaries—­ fixin’s fer a girl,” he suggested.

Red King laughed in his cool, easy, droll way.  “Shore, we’ll rustle fer a lookin’-glass, an’ hair-brush, an’ such as girls hev to hev.  Our camp is full of them things.”

But Neale did not see any humor in Slingerland’s perplexity or in the cowboy’s facetiousness.  It was the girl’s serious condition that worried him, not her future comfort.

“Run out thar!” called Slingerland, sharply.

Neale, who was the nearest to the door, bolted outside, to see the girl sitting up, her hair disheveled, her manner wild in the extreme.  At sight of him she gave a start, sudden and violent, and uttered a sharp cry.  When Neale reached her it was to find her shaking all over.  Terrible fear had never been more vividly shown, yet Neale believed she saw in him a white man, a friend.  But the fear in her was still stronger than reason.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“My name’s Neale—­Warren Neale,” he replied, sitting down beside her.  He took one of the shaking hands in his.  He was glad that she talked rationally.