Out Of The Depths Part 31

"I shall tote you back to camp, and--No, I'll lay you over there in the shade and go up to see if he is in sight."

Picking up the wounded man as easily as if he had been a child, the engineer carried him over under a tree, fetched him the can of water, and for the second time climbed the rocky hillside. Scaling his lookout crag, he surveyed the country below him. A mile down the creek two riders were coming up towards the waterhole at an easy canter. He surmised that they were his wife and Miss Knowles.

Their approach brought a shade of anxiety into his strong face. He swept the landscape with his glance. A little cloud of dust far out on the mesa towards Split Peak caught his eye. He looked at it steadfastly under his hand, and drew a deep breath of relief as he made out a fleeing horse and rider.

He descended to Ashton, and taking him up pick-a-back, swung away for the camp with long, swift strides. Before he had gone half the distance, he felt Ashton's arms loosening their clasp of his neck. He caught him as he sank in a swoon. Without a moment's hesitation, he slung his senseless burden up on his shoulder like a sack of meal, and hastened on faster than before.

Swiftly as he walked, the ladies reached the camp before him. When he came to the top of the dike slope, his wife had dismounted and Isobel was handing down the baby to her. As the girl slipped out of the saddle she looked up the slope. With a startled cry, she darted to meet Blake.

Quick to forestall her alarm, he called in a gasping shout: "Not serious--not serious!"

"Oh, Tom--Mr. Blake!" she cried. "What has happened?"

"Scalp wound--faint--blood loss," Blake panted in terse answer.

"He is wounded? O-o-oh!" She ran up and looked fearfully at the bloodsoaked bandages across Ashton's hanging head.

Blake staggered on down the slope without pausing. Genevieve had started to meet him. But at her husband's panting explanation, she laid the baby on the nearest soft spot of earth and darted to the kit-chest. She was opening a "first aid" box when Blake crashed through the bushes and sank down with his burden under the first tree.

Genevieve hastened towards the men, calling to her companion: "Water, Chuckie--that pail by the fireplace."

The girl flew to fetch a bucket of water from the pool.

Blake was peering anxiously down into Ashton's white face.

"Didn't--know--but--that--" he panted.

"No," rea.s.sured his wife. "He will soon be all right."

She drew the unconscious man flat on his back and held a bottle of ammonia to his nostrils. The powerful stimulant revived him just as the girl came running back with the water. He opened his eyes, and the first object they rested upon was her anxious pitiful face. He smiled and whispered gallantly: "Don't be afraid. I'm all right--now!"

"Then I'll drink first," said Blake.

He took a deep draught from the pail, doused a hatful of water over his hot head and face, and stretched out to cool off. Genevieve, a.s.sisted by the deeply concerned girl, took the handkerchief bandage from Ashton's head and washed the wound with an antiseptic solution.

She then clipped away the hair from the edges and drew the scalp together with a number of st.i.tches.

In this last the hardy cowgirl was unable to help. She clasped Ashton's hand convulsively and sat shuddering. Ashton smiled up into her tender pitying eyes. Genevieve had numbed his wound with cocaine.

He was quite satisfied with the situation.

Another antiseptic was.h.i.+ng and a compress of sterilized cotton bound on with surgical bandages completed the operation. Then, when it was all over with, the young mother, who had gone through everything with the aplomb and deftness of a surgeon, quietly sank back in a faint. On the instant Blake was reaching for the ammonia bottle.

A whiff restored his wife to consciousness. She opened her eyes, and smiling at her weakness, sought to rise. He held her down with gentle force and ordered her to lie quiet.

"I shall fetch Tommy," he added. "We'll all take a _siesta_ until noon."

CHAPTER XIX

THE PLOTTERS

When Blake came back with the baby, Isobel begged him for a full account of how Ashton had been wounded. In relating the affair he sought to minimize the danger that he had incurred, and he omitted all mention of the bullet shot at him the previous evening. But his account was frequently interrupted by exclamations from his wife and Isobel.

At the end he dwelt strongly on the cowardly haste of the a.s.sa.s.sin's flight; only to be met by a shrewdly anxious rejoinder from the girl: "He ran away after he attacked Lafe the other time. He will come back again!"

"Oh, Tom!" cried Genevieve--"if he does!"

"We will get him, that is all there is to it," replied her husband.

"What do you say to that, Ashton?"

"We will not have the chance," said Ashton. "I don't believe he has nerve enough to try it the third time. But if he should--"

"No, no! I hope he keeps running forever!" fervently wished Isobel.

"Don't you realize how close a miss that was, Lafe?--and the other time, too?"

"I like having one Miss close," he punned.

The girl blushed, but failed to show any sign of resentment.

Blake looked significantly at his wife. "Don't know but what I've changed my mind about a _siesta_," he remarked. "Here's Tommy gone to sleep just when I wanted to fight him. Do you think Miss Chuckie can keep him and Ashton from running away if I go to bring in the level?"

"You say you had started to run the line of levels across to the mountain?" she asked.

"Yes.... This little pleasantry has knocked us out of a day's work and you out of your trip to the canon."

"But why couldn't I rod for you?" she suggested. "I noticed Lafayette the other day. It seems easier than golfing."

"It is."

"Then I shall do it. A good walk is exactly what I need."

"Genevieve!" hastily appealed Isobel. "Surely you'll not go off and leave me--us!"

"Thomas is asleep, and Lafayette needs to be quiet," was the demure reply. "Come, Tom. We'll run the levels over to the foot of the mountain, at least."

With a reproachful glance at the smiling couple, the girl slipped over to put Thomas Herbert between herself and Ashton. Blake found another bag and can, which last he filled with water from the bucket.

Genevieve put on the cowboy hat that she had borrowed at the ranch, and sprang up to join him.

He paused for a question: "How about leaving the rifle?"

Isobel put her hand to a fold in her skirt and drew out her long-barreled automatic pistol. "I can do as well or better with this," she answered.

"What a wicked looking thing!" exclaimed Genevieve. "Surely, dear, you do not shoot it?"

"Shoot it!" put in Ashton. "Hasn't she told you about saving me from a rattler?"

"She did?"