“Scouting around yere all night, I can’t do much good, and that’s a fact.”
“And I’ve got nothing to eat, while the maje and the folks at Advance will be mighty anxious tuh know if yuh got through all right--ain’t that so?”
“Then I’m goin’ to take a sneak back and try to git through the lines after dark.”
“No, you won’t, Jack Omohondreau. I veto that.”
“Put the kibosh on it, do yuh?” asked Jack, leering back at his partner over his shoulder.
“There’s no danger going on now for help, so I’ll return to the fort myself, while you strike out for Resistence and help. I got you into this. I’m not going to shoulder the heavy part of the job off onto you.”
“That’s like you, Cody! Always lookin’ for trouble to git into yourself. But I’m going back.”
“Now, see here!” exclaimed Jack, in some heat. “It’s my idea to go back, and I’m going.”
“Well, you needn’t stop here,” laughed Cody, as Jack, in his excitement, brought the horse down to a walk.
“You listen to reason!” exclaimed Texas Jack. “I speak the lingo all O. K.”
“Pshaw! That may be, but I can soon change my colors.”
“See here, Jack, I admit that the folks need us back there at the fort, and one had better return, but I should be the one.”
“Tell you what, pard!” exclaimed Jack, smitten with a sudden thought.
“I’ll beat you at that game, Jack!” cried Cody, with a laugh.
“Don’t yuh crow too loud, old man,” said Texas Jack gaily. “When we git to the creek we’ll see who’s who!”
“I’m sure a child of fortune myself,” laughed Jack.
They soon reached the creek, which cut across the cañon at its widest part, spurting from under a ledge on one side, and disappearing with a tinkle of falling water through a crack on the other--one of those underground streams often found in the Rockies, which only by chance ever come to the light of day.
The scouts dismounted, making sure that all pursuit had been abandoned by their mounted foes, at least, and washed and dressed their slight wounds. In each man’s pouch was Indian salve, certain valuable herbs, dried, and bandages rolled for them by the women of Fort Advance. Your old frontiersman was no mean surgeon, and many a man to-day, whose early years were spent on the border, owes his life to some rough but prompt bit of surgery on the part of a pard with powder-stained fingers.