was anything more than a
pleasure excursion he had been on the past two days.

"Good work, Kid! Whatcha want me t' do?"

It was Bud who arranged the camp and went back to tell the other
detachments that Margaret was found; Bud who led the pack-horse up,
unpacked the provisions, and gathered wood to start a fire. Bud was
everywhere, with a smudged face, a weary, gray look around his eyes, and
his hair sticking "seven ways for Sunday." Yet once, when his labors led
him near to where Margaret lay weak and happy on a couch of blankets, he
gave her an unwonted pat on her shoulder and said in a low tone: "Hello,
Gang! See you kept your nerve with you!" and then he gave her a grin all
across his dirty, tired face, and moved away as if he were half ashamed
of his emotion. But it was Bud again who came and talked with her to
divert her so that she wouldn't notice when they shot her horse. He
talked loudly about a coyote they shot the night before, and a
cottontail they saw at Keams, and when he saw that she understood what
the shot meant, and there were tears in her eyes, he gave her hand a
rough, bear squeeze and said, gruffly: "You should worry! He's better
off now!" And when Gardley came back he took himself thoughtfully to a
distance and busied himself opening tins of meat and soup.

In another hour the Brownleighs arrived, having heard the signals, and
they had a supper around the camp-fire, everybody so rejoiced that there
were still quivers in their voices; and when any one laughed it sounded
like the echo of a sob, so great had been the strain of their anxiety.

Gardley, sitting beside Margaret in the starlight afterward, her hand in
his, listened to the story of her journey, the strong, tender pressure
of his fingers telling her how deeply it affected him to know the peril
through which she had passed. Later, when the others were telling gay
stories about the fire, and Bud lying full length in their midst had
fallen fast asleep, these two, a little apart from the rest, were
murmuring their innermost thoughts in low tones to each other, and
rejoicing that they were together once more.

CHAPTER XXXIV

They talked it over the next morning at breakfast as they sat around the
fire. Jasper Kemp thought he ought to get right back to attend to
things. Mr. Rogers was all broken up, and might even need him to search
for Rosa if they had not found out her whereabouts yet. He and Fiddling
Boss, who had come along, wou