Blakely drank and sat up presently, dazed, and Heartburn went on with
his cheery talk. "One of you men out there call Captain Stout. Tell
him Mr. Blakely's up and asking for him," and, feeling presently a
glow of warmth coursing in his veins, the Bugologist roused to a
sitting posture and began to mumble questions. And then a burly shadow
appeared at the entrance, black against the ruddy firelight in the
cañon without, where other forms began to appear. Down on his knee
came Stout to clasp his one available hand and even clap him on the
back and send unwelcome jar through his fevered, swollen arm. "Good
boy, Bugs! You're coming round famously. We'll start you back to Sandy
in the morning, you and Wren, for nursing, petting, and all that sort
of thing. They are lashing the saplings now for your litters, and
we've sent for Graham, too, and he'll meet you on the the way, while
we shove on after Shield's people."
"Shield--Raven Shield?" queried Blakely, still half dazed. "Shield was
killed--at Sandy," and yet there was the memory of the voice he knew
and heard in this very cañon.
"Shield, yes; and now his brother heads them. Didn't he send his card
down to you, after the donicks, and be damned to him? You foregathered
with both of them at the agency. Oh, they're all alike, Bugs, once
they're started on the warpath. Now we must get you out into the open
for a while. The air's better."
And so, an hour later, his arm carefully dressed and bandaged,
comforted by needed food and fragrant tea and the news that Wren was
reviving under the doctor's ministrations, and would surely mend and
recover, Blakely lay propped by the fire and heard the story of
Stout's rush through the wilderness to their succor. Never waiting for
the dawn, after a few hours' rest at Beaver Spring, the sturdy
doughboys had eagerly followed their skilled and trusted leader all
the hours from eleven, stumbling, but never halting even for rest or
rations, and at last had found the trail four miles below in the
depths of the cañon. There some scattering shots had met them, arrow
and rifle both, from up the heights, and an effort was made to delay
their progress. Wearied and footsore though were his men, they had
driven the scurrying foe from rock to rock and then, in a lull that
followed, had heard the distant sound of firing that told them whither
to follow on. Only one man, Stern, was able to give them coherent word
or welcome when at last they came, for Chalmers and Carmody lay dead,
Wren in a stupor, Blakely in a deathlike swoon, and "that poor chap
yonder" loony and hysterical as a crazy man. Thank God they had not,
as they had first intended, waited for the break of day.