"You go to Santa Fé? Take me. I do you good, not bad."

"What would these Kiowas do to us, then?"

It was Bill Banney who spoke.

"They follow you--kill you."

"Oh, cheerful! I wish you were twins," Rex Krane said, softly.

Jondo lifted his hand.

"Let me talk to her," he said.

Then in her own language he got her story.

"Here we are." He turned to us. "Stolen from her people by the Mexicans,
probably the same ones we passed in Council Grove; traded to the Kiowas
out here somewhere, beaten, and starved, and held for ransom, or trade
to some other tribe. They are over there behind Pawnee Rock. They got
sight of us somehow, but they don't intend to bother us. They are on the
lookout for a bigger train. She has slipped away while they sleep. If we
send her back she will be beaten and made a slave. If we keep her, they
will follow us for a fight. They are fifty to our six. What shall we
do?"

"We don't need any Indians to help us get into trouble. We are sure
enough of it without that," Bill Banney declared. "And what's one
Indian, anyhow? She's just--"