Attaining to the summit of a slight knoll, whence a somewhat wider
vista lay outspread, he partially turned his face toward the men
straggling along in the rear, while his hand swept across the dreary
scene.
"If that line of trees over yonder indicates the course of the Bear
Water, Carson," he questioned quietly, "where are we expected to hit
the trail leading down to the ford?"
The sergeant, thus addressed, a little stocky fellow wearing a closely
clipped gray moustache, spurred his exhausted horse into a brief trot,
and drew up short by the officer's side, his heavy eyes scanning the
vague distance, even while his right hand was uplifted in perfunctory
salute.
"There 's no trail I know about along this bank, sir," he replied
respectfully, "but the big cottonwood with the dead branch forking out
at the top is the ford guide."
They rode down in moody silence into the next depression, and began
wearily climbing the long hill opposite, apparently the last before
coming directly down the banks of the stream. As his barely moving
horse topped the uneven summit, the lieutenant suddenly drew in his
rein, and uttering an exclamation of surprise, bent forward, staring
intently down in his immediate front. For a single instant he appeared
to doubt the evidence of his own eyes; then he swung hastily from out
the saddle, all weariness forgotten.
"My God!" he cried, sharply, his eyes suspiciously sweeping the bare
slope. "There are two bodies lying here--white people!"
They lay all doubled up in the coarse grass, exactly as they had
fallen, the man resting face downward, the slender figure of the girl
clasped vice-like in his arms, with her tightly closed eyes upturned
toward the glaring sun. Their strange, strained, unnatural posture,
the rigidity of their limbs, the ghastly pallor of the exposed young
face accentuated by dark, dishevelled hair, all alike seemed to
indicate death. Never once questioning but that he was confronting the
closing scene of a grewsome tragedy, the thoroughly aroused lieutenant
dropped upon his knees beside them, his eyes already moist with
sympathy, his anxious fingers feeling for a possible heart-beat. A
moment of hushed, breathless suspense followed, and then he began
flinging terse, eager commands across his shoulder to where his men
were clustered.
"Here! Carson, Perry, Ronk, lay hold quick, and break this fellow's
clasp," he cried, briefly. "The girl retains a spark of life yet, but
the man's arms fairly crush her."
With all the rigidity of actual death those clutching hands held their
tenacious grip, but the aroused soldiers wrenched the interlaced
fingers apart with every tenderness possible in such emergency, shocked
at noting the expression of intense agony stamped upon the man's face
when thus exposed to view. The whole terrible story was engraven
there--how he had toiled, agonized, suffered, before finally yielding
to the inevitable and plunging forward in unconsciousness, written as
legibly as though by a pen. Every pang of mental torture had left
plainest imprint across that haggard countenance. He appeared old,
pitiable, a wreck. Carson, who in his long service had witnessed much
of death and suffering, bent tenderly above him, seeking for some faint
evidence of lingering life. His fingers felt for no wound, for to his
experienced eyes the sad tale was already sufficiently clear--hunger,
exposure, the horrible heart-breaking strain of hopeless endeavor, had
caused this ending, this unspeakable tragedy of the barren waterless
plain. He had witnessed it all before, and hoped now for little. The
anxious lieutenant, bareheaded under the hot sun-glare, strode hastily
across from beside the unconscious but breathing girl, and stood gazing
doubtfully down upon them.