There was silence before the fire. McCloud broke it: "I can put the hundred men there at daylight, Gordon, if Miss Dunning and her cousin want them," said McCloud.
Marion sprang to her feet. "Oh, will you do that, Mr. McCloud?"
McCloud looked at Dicksie. "If they are wanted."
Dicksie tried to look at the fire. "We have hardly deserved help from Mr. McCloud at the ranch," she said at last.
He put out his hand. "I must object. The first wreck I ever had on this division Miss Dunning rode twenty miles to offer help. Isn't that true? Why, I would walk a hundred miles to return the offer to her. Perhaps your cousin would object," he suggested, turning to Dicksie; "but no, I think we can manage that. Now what are we going to do? You two can't go back to-night, that is certain."
"Then you will have to go in boats," said Whispering Smith.
"There is five feet of water across it in half a dozen places. I swam my horse through, so I ought to know."
"It is all back-water, of course, Miss Dunning," explained McCloud. "Not dangerous."
"But moist," suggested Whispering Smith, "especially in the dark."
McCloud looked at Marion. "Then let's be sensible," he said. "You and Miss Dunning can have my tent as soon as we have supper."
"Supper is served to all on duty at twelve o'clock, and we're on duty, aren't we? They're about ready to serve now; we eat in the tent," he added, holding out his hand as he heard the patter of raindrops. "Rain again! No matter, we shall be dry under canvas."
Dicksie had never seen an engineers' field headquarters. Lanterns lighted the interior, and the folding-table in the middle was strewn with papers which McCloud swept off into a camp-chest. Two double cots with an aisle between them stood at the head of the tent, and, spread with bright Hudson Bay blankets, looked fresh and undisturbed. A box-table near the head-pole held an alarm-clock, a telegraph key, and a telephone, and the wires ran up the pole behind it. Leather jackets and sweaters lay on boxes under the tent-walls, and heavy boots stood in disorderly array along the foot of the cots. These McCloud, with apologies, kicked into the corners.
"Four of us sleep in the cots, when we can, and an indefinite number lie on the ground when it rains."