text stringlengths 0 16.8k |
|---|
Hamersley has scarce noticed it himself, and his attention is now called to it, less from perceiving any acute pain than that he begins to feel faint and feeble. Blood is oozing through the breast of his shirt, running down the legs of his trousers, and on into his boots. And the fountain from which it proceeds is fast... |
A moment's pause to examine it. When the vest and shirt are opened it is seen that a bullet has passed through his left side, causing only a flesh wound, but cutting an artery in its course. Scratched and torn in several other places, for the time equally painful, he had not yet perceived this more serious injury. |
It is not mortal, nor likely to prove so. The guide and hunter, like most of his calling, is a rough practical surgeon; and after giving the wound a hurried examination, pronounces it "only a scratch," then urges his companion onward. |
Again starting, they proceed at the same quick pace; but before they have made another mile the wounded man feels his weakness sensibly overcoming him. Then the rapid run is succeeded by a slow dog-trot, soon decreasing to a walk, at length ending in a dead stop. |
"I can go no farther, Walt; not if all the devils of hell were at my heels. I've done my best. If they come after you keep on, and leave me." |
"Niver, Frank Hamersley, niver! Walt Wilder ain't the man to sep'rate from a kumrade, and leave him in a fix that way. If ye must pull up, so do this child. An' I see ye must; thar's no behelp for it." |
"I cannot go a step farther." |
"Enuf! But don't let's stan' to be seen miles off. Squat's the word. Down on yer belly, like a toad under a harrer. Thar's jest a resemblance o' kiver, hyar 'mong these tussocks o' buffler-grass; an' this child ain't the most inconspicerousest objeck on the plain. Let's squat on our breast-ribs, an' lay close as pancak... |
Whilst speaking he throws himself to the earth, flat on his face. |
Hamersley, already tottering, drops down by his side; as he does so, leaving the plain, as far as the eye can reach, without salient object to intercept the vision -- any more than might be seen on the surface of a sleeping ocean. |
It is in favour of the fugitives that the day has now well declined. But they do not remain long in their recumbent position before the sun, sinking behind the western horizon, gives them an opportunity of once more getting upon their feet. |
They do so, glad to escape from a posture whose restraint is exceedingly irksome. They have suffered from the hot atmosphere rising like caloric from the parched plain. But now that the sun had gone down, a cool breeze begins to play over its surface, fanning them to fresh energy. Besides, the night closing over them -... |
"Frank! d'ye think ye kin go a little furrer now?" is the interrogatory put by the hunter. |
"Yes, Walt; miles further," is the response. "I feel as if I could walk across the grandest spread of prairie." |
"Good!" ejaculates the guide. "I'm glad to hear you talk that way. If we kin but git a wheen o' miles atween us an' them yelpin' savages, we may hev a chance o' salvation yit. The wust o' the thing air, that we don't know which way to go. It's a toss up 'tween 'em. If we turn back torst the Canadyen, we may meet 'em ag... |
"Go which way you please, Walt; you know best. I am ready to follow you; and I think I shall be able." |
"Wal, at anyhow, we'd best be movin' off from hyar. If ye can't go a great ways under kiver o' the night, I reck'n we kin put enough o' parairia atween us an' these Injuns to make sure agin thar spyin' us in the mornin'. So let's start south-eastart, an' try for the sources o' the Red. Thur's that ole beauty o' the Nor... |
So speaking, the guide started forward -- not in full stride, but timing his pace to suit the feeble steps of his disabled comrade. |
Chapter Eighteen. |
A Lilliputian Forest. |
Guiding their course by the stars the fugitives continue on -- no longer going in a run, nor even in a very rapid walk. Despite the resolution with which he endeavours to nerve himself, the wounded man is still too weak to make much progress, and he advances but laggingly. His companion does not urge him to quicken his... |
There appears no great reason for making haste now. They have all the night before them, and, ere daylight can discover them, they will be sure to find some place of concealment. |
The ground is favourable to pedestrianism in the darkness. The surface, hard-baked by the sun, is level as a set flagstone, and in most places so smooth that a carriage could run upon it as on the drive of a park. Well for them it is so. Had the path been a rugged one the wounded man would not go far before giving out.... |
Nor do they proceed a very great distance before again coming to a halt; though far enough to feel sure that, standing erect, they cannot be descried by any one who may have ascended the cliff at the place where they took departure from it. |
But they have also reached that which offers them a chance of concealment -- in short, a forest. It is a forest not discernible at more than a mile's distance, for the trees that compose it are "shin oaks," the tallest rising to the height of only eighteen inches above the surface of the ground. Eighteen inches is enou... |
Becoming satisfied that there is no longer a likelihood of their being pursued across the plain, Wilder proposes that they again make stop; this time to obtain sleep, which in their anxiety during their previous spell of rest they did not attempt. He makes the proposal out of consideration for his comrade, who for some... |
"We kin lie by till sun-up," says Walt; "an' then, if we see any sign o' pursoot, kin stay hyar till the sun goes down agin. These shin oaks will gie us kiver enuf. Squatted, there'll be no chance o' thar diskiverin' us, unless they stumble right atop o' us." His companion is not in the mood to make objection, and the ... |
They remain awake only long enough to give Hamersley's wound such dressing as the circumstances permit, and then both sink into slumber. |
With the young prairie merchant it is neither deep nor profound. Horrid visions float before his rapt senses -- scenes of red carnage -- causing him ever and anon to awake with a start, once or twice with a cry that wakes his companion. |
Otherwise Walt Wilder would have slept as soundly as if reposing on the couch of a log cabin a thousand miles removed from any scene of danger. It is no new thing for him to go to sleep with the yell of savages sounding in his ears. For a period of over twenty years he has daily, as nightly, stretched his huge form alo... |
At no time does the ex-Ranger stand in need of much sleep, even after the most protracted toil. Six hours is his usual daily or nocturnal dose; and as the grey dawn begins to glimmer over the tops of the shin oaks, he springs to his feet, shakes the dew from his shoulders like a startled stag, and then stoops down to e... |
"Don't ye git up yit, Frank," he says. "We mustn't start till we hev a clar view all roun', an' be sure there's neery redskin in sight. Then we kin take the sun a leetle on our left side, an' make tracks to the south-eastart. How is't wi' ye?" |
"I feel weak as water. Still I fancy I can travel a little farther." |
"Wall, we'll go slow. Ef there's none o' the skunks arter us, we kin take our time. Durn me! I'm still a wonderin' what Injuns they war; I'm a'most sartint thar the Tenawa Kimanch -- a band o' the Buffler-eaters an' the wust lot on all the parairia. Many's the fight we rangers used to hev wi' 'em, and many's the one o'... |
"A dream! So have I. It is not strange for either of us to dream of them. What was yours, Walt?" |
"Kewrus enuf mine war, though it warn't all a dreem. I reck'n I war more 'n half awake when I tuk to thinkin' about 'em, an' 'twar somethin' I seed durin' the skrimmage. Didn't you observe nothin' queery?" |
"Rather say, nothing that was not that way. It was all queer enough, and terrible, too." |
"That this child will admit wi' full freedom. But I've f't redskin afore in all sorts an' shapes, yet niver seed redskin sech as them." |
"In what did they differ from other savages? I saw nothing different." |
"But I did; leastways, I suspeck I did. Didn't you spy 'mong the lot two or three that had ha'r on thar faces?" |
"Yes; I noticed that. I thought nothing of it. It's common among the Comanches and other tribes of the Mexican territory, many of whom are of mixed breed -- from the captive Mexican women they have among them." |
"The ha'r I seed didn't look like it grew on the face o' a mixed blood." |
"But there are pure white men among them -- outlaws who have run away from civilisation and turned renegades -- as also captives they have taken, who become Indianised, as the Mexicans call it. Doubtless it may have been some of these we saw." |
"Wall, you may be right, Frank. Sartint thar war one I seed wi' a beard 'most as big as my own -- only it war black. His hide war black, too, or nigh to it; but ef that skunk wan't white un'erneath a coatin' o' charcoal an' vermilion then Walt Wilder don't know a Kristyun from a heethun. I ain't no use spek'latin' on't... |
Hamersley slowly and somewhat reluctantly rises to his feet. He still feels in poor condition for travelling. But to stay there is to die; and bracing himself to the effort, he steps out side by side with his colossal companion. |
Chapter Nineteen. |
The Departure Of The Plunderers. |
On the day after the capture of the caravan the Indians, having consumed all the whisky found in the waggons, and become comparatively sober, prepared to move off. |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.