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At earliest peep of dawn the squaere astir waiting for Kut-le, who shortly staggered into camp with a load of meat on his shoulder Alchise ith him
"Mule meat!" said Kut-le to Rhoda "I went to find horses but there was nothing but an old laht him back this way!"
"Heavens!" ejaculated Rhoda
The squaorked busily, cutting theover their shoulders to sun dry during the day Alchise cleansed a length of ave small heed to these preparations She was too ill and feverish even to be disgusted by the When at Kut-le's coMolly's canteen from his own to Alchise's shoulder and felt Rhoda's pulse
"This water was bad for you," he said "But it was the only spring within et into the heat of the sun"
Rhodalay in a pocket between h to Rhoda as she looked at the across the hands she followed for half an hour Then Kut-le turned
"I'irl shrank away from him
"You and Molly and all of them think I'm just a parasite," shefor me! Just let ely Without comment, he picked her up There was a sternly tender look on his face that never had been there before He did not carry her dispassionately today, but very gently Soh Rhoda's half delirium and she looked up at him with a faint replica of her old lovely smile that Kut-le had not seen since he had stolen her He trembled at its beauty and started forward at a treood water by noon," he said
At noon they ell up in the rew below it, and high above it were pines and junipers It was a spot of surpassing loveliness, but Rhoda, tossing and panting, could not know it, Kut-le laid his burden on the ground and Molly drew off her tattered petticoat to lay beneath the feverish head The young Apache stood looking down at the little figure, so graceful in its boyish abandonesture, so pitiful in its broken unconsciousness Molly bathed the burning face and hands in the pure cold water,tender Apache phrases Kut-le constantly interrupted her to change the girl's position For an hour or so he waited for the fever to turn By three o'clock there was no change for the better and he left Rhoda's side to pace back and forth by the spring in anxious thought