over an hour ago, yonder behind that big bowlder, and his girl sits
there still holding his head in her lap. She'll get hit also unless
somebody pulls her out of there, and she's doing no good to
Gillis--he's dead."

Hampton's clear-cut, expressive face became graver, all trace of
recklessness gone from it. He lifted his head cautiously, peering over
his rock cover toward where he remembered earlier in the fight Gillis
had sought refuge.




CHAPTER II

OLD GILLIS'S GIRL

Excepting for a vague knowledge that Gillis had had a girl with him,
together with the half-formed determination that if worse came to worst
she must never be permitted to fall alive into the hands of the lustful
Sioux, Mr. Hampton had scarcely so much as noted her presence. Of late
years he had not felt greatly interested in the sex, and his
inclination, since uniting his shattered fortunes with this little
company, had been to avoid coming into personal contact with this
particular specimen. Practically, therefore, he now observed her for
the first time. Previously she had passed within range of his vision
simply as the merest shadow; now she began to appeal faintly to him as
a personality, uninteresting enough, of course, yet a living human
being, whom it had oddly become his manifest duty to succor and
protect. The never wholly eradicated instincts of one born and bred a