The water and the cool, wet bandanna alleviated the misery of the wounded
man. He shut his eyes, muttering incoherently.

There was no longer any sound of firing. The long silence alarmed Bob.
Was it possible that his friends had been driven off? Or that they had
retired from the field under the impression that all of the riders who
had plunged over the bluff had been killed?

This fear obsessed him. It rode him like an old man of the sea. He could
not wait here till the Utes came to murder him and Houck. Down in the
bottom of his heart he knew that he could not leave this enemy of his to
the fate that would befall him. The only thing to do was to go for help
at once.

He took off his coat and put it under Houck's head. He moistened the hot
bandanna for the burning forehead and poured the rest of the water down
the throat of the sick man. The rifle he left with Houck. It would only
impede him while he was crossing the mesa.

None of us know what we can do till the test comes. Bob felt it was
physically impossible for him to venture into the open again and try to
reach his friends. He might at any instant run plumb into the Utes.
Nevertheless he crept out from the willows into the sage desert.

The popping of the guns had begun again. The battle seemed to be close to
the edge of the mesa round the bend of the river. Bob swung wide,
climbing the bluff from the farther skirt of the willows. He reached the
mesa.

From where he lay he could see that the whites held a ridge two hundred
yards away. The Utes were apparently in the river valley.

He moved forward warily, every sense abnormally keyed to service. A clump
of wild blackberries grew on the rim of the bluff. From this smoke
billowed. Bullets began to zip past Bob. He legged it for the ridge,
blind to everything but his desperate need to escape.

CHAPTER XXXIII

"KEEP A-COMIN', RED HAID"

When the rangers and the militia stampeded after the Indian scout, Dud
Hollister was examining the hoof of his mount. He swung instantly to the
saddle and touched his pony with the spur. It shot across the mesa on the
outskirts of the troop. Not impeded by riders in front, Dud reached the
bluff above the river valley on the heels of the advance guard. He pulled
up just in time to keep from plunging over.

The Utes, under cover of the willow saplings, were concentrating a very
heavy fire on the bluff and slope below. Dud's first thought was that the
troops had bee