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
gentleman, although heavily overlaid by the habits acquired in many a
rough year passed along the border, brought vividly before him the
requirements of the situation. Undoubtedly death was destined to be
the early portion of them all; nevertheless she deserved every
opportunity for life that remained, and with the ending of hope--well,
there are worse fates upon the frontier than the unexpected plunge of a
bullet through a benumbed brain.
Guided by the unerring instinct of an old Indian fighter, Gillis,
during that first mad retreat, had discovered temporary shelter behind
one of the largest bowlders. It was a trifle in advance of those later
rolled into position by the soldiers, but was of a size and shape which
should have afforded ample protection for two, and doubtless would have
done so had it not been for the firing from the cliff opposite. Even
then it was a deflected bullet, glancing from off the polished surface
of the rock, which found lodgment in the sturdy old fighter's brain.
The girl had caught him as he fell, had wasted all her treasured store
of water in a vain effort to cleanse the blood from his features, and
now sat there, pillowing his head upon her knee, although the old man
was stone dead with the first touch of the ball. That had occurred
fully an hour before, but she continued in the same posture, a grave,
pathetic figure, her face sobered and careworn beyond her years, her
eyes dry and staring, one brown hand grasping unconsciously the old
man's useless rifle. She would scarcely have been esteemed attractive
even under much happier circumstances and assisted by dress, yet there
was something in the independent poise of her head, the steady
fixedness of her posture, which served to interest Hampton as he now
watched her curiously.