CHAPTER XIII.-HOT AIR SUE.
A heated argument was taking place.
"Go on, Hot Air Sue and mind your own business. You are too full of curiosity. I tell you I found this girl here. She had run away from home."
"Umph! Umph! Hawkeseye big lie. Hawkeseye always big lie!"
"Woman, will you be quiet. Do you want to make big money. Father rich man, see? He pay big money to get girl back. Hot Air Sue make much gold.
Hot Air Sue have necklace and fine new dress."
"Umph! Umph!"
"If I promise to take you, will you keep quiet?"
"Umph! Umph!"
Billie"s wandering mind had returned to its dwelling place but she still kept her eyes closed even when she felt two strong arms lift her up and place her on a seat which seemed almost familiar. She half opened her eyes and looked through the lashes. She was in an automobile, but it was not the Comet.
"Get in, Sue. Sit here and hold her beside you. I"ll run the car."
Evidently there were only two seats to the motor car. Billie was squeezed into a seat beside the woman and while the peddler, Indian, or whatever he was, was cranking up the machine she opened her eyes and looked straight into the little pig eyes of a fat Indian squaw.
"Shut eyes," whispered Hot Air Sue and Billie promptly closed them again, feeling suddenly very wide awake and alert.
Presently they were moving smoothly and silently over the prairie. The automobile was a very fast one and the wind raised by the swift motion had a reviving, refreshing effect on the exhausted girl.
"Water and food," she whispered into the ear of Hot Air Sue.
"Umph!" grunted the squaw. "Girl ver" sick," she said to Hawkes. "Must have water and bread."
The man stopped the car and from under the seat drew forth a box of crackers and a bottle of water. Billie ate some of the crackers and drank deeply from a tin cup of the water. She never stopped to think of how clean the cup was or where the sandwich had come from.
Then she laid her head on the Indian woman"s breast and pretended to go back to sleep.
"Where going?" she heard Hot Air Sue ask.
"Across the border," he said. "Into Colorado. We"ll get there by evening."
The air was beginning to have a cool feeling. They had left the plains abruptly behind them and were nearing the mountains.
"I must get back tonight," said Billie to herself. "Cousin Helen will die of heart failure if I don"t."
Although her body was exhausted, her mind was clear and with her eyes closed, she was able to think connectedly and deeply. "I am being kidnapped," her thoughts continued. "Hot Air Sue is my friend and will save me if she possibly can. The trouble is we haven"t any money between us, I suppose."
Once after a long time they stopped and Hawkes jumped out and examined one of the tires.
"Sue save young lady," whispered the old Indian woman. "Sue not afraid.
Don"t wake up."
The man came and stood at the side of the car and looked into Billie"s face.
"Hot Air Sue good old girl," he said. "Hot Air Sue won"t be sorry she helped Hawkeseye. Give me water bottle. Hawkeseye get water. Hot Air Sue look after girl. She mustn"t run away. No money, no girl."
"Umph! umph!" grunted the woman. "Sue would get water for young chief, but Sue must hold girl."
Hawkeseye took the bottle and started down to a spring which bubbled out of the rocks at the foot of a small precipice at one side of the road.
Billie watched him as he leaped nimbly from one rock to another. Then with one flying leap she was out of the machine and had cranked it up.
At the sound of the motor the man looked up quickly, dropped the bottle with a crash of broken gla.s.s and began to run up the cliff. It was a difficult place in which to turn, and Billie was obliged to go backward down a narrow road, but the young girl kept her head and moved the machine slowly and deliberately.
"Hawkeseye come runnin"," said the Indian woman. "White girl hurry."
Another moment and they were headed in the other direction, but Hawkeseye had reached them. With a bound he seized the back of the machine and was lifting himself on his elbows.
Instantly Hot Air Sue whipped out a knife which she had hidden somewhere in the depths of her shawl, and slashed him across the wrist. With a yell of fury the man fell backward and lay on the ground. Billie gave one glance over her shoulder. Never had she felt so deliberately and cruelly cold-blooded as at that moment. If Buckthorne Hawkes" back had been broken she would have gone on just the same. But it was not broken, for a second glance showed him crawling to the side of the road.
"I"m at Steptoe Lodge. Do you know where that is?" she asked Hot Air Sue, who was regarding her efforts at running the motor car with stolid admiration.
"Steptoe Lodge thirty miles away."
"Thirty miles? That"s nothing," replied Billie cheerfully. "Is this the right road?"
"This is first right road. This road wrong later."
"You mean we take another road that branches off from this?"
"Umph!"
"Will you tell me when we get to it?"
"Hot Air Sue tell everything. Hot Air Sue talk much. That"s why cowboys call her "Hot Air.""
Billie laughed. Was it possible she had been dying of thirst in the desert only a few hours before, and here she was exhilarated and almost shouting with joy over her escape; riding with Hot Air Sue in a perfectly strange automobile. But was it perfectly strange? She leaned over and looked at the color as they sped along. It was gray. It was a racing car and it was built for two.
"Hawkeseye bad man. Hawkeseye call himself school-teacher. He bad Indian," went on Sue. "He no teacher. He thief. He no Indian, either. He only half Indian. That"s why Hawkeseye bad man. All white or all red better."
"Hawkeseye steals automobiles," said Billie.
"Umph! Umph! His sisters, they spoil Hawkeseye. They work to send him to school and give him fine clothes."
"Has he got another sister?"
"Hawkeseye got two sisters-Rosina and Maria."