na was
halfway to it, before any of us saw. He wasn't dead; but had a bullet
through both legs.

"Say that place was full of horrors! It stunk of gunpowder; and there
was little thin layers of smoke hanging quiet between the walls. I was
near out of my head, thinking what had become of them. We shouted all
the time; and by and by we got a faint kind of an answer back. By Jolly!
I went up those rocks like a cat! I found them behind a whopping big
rock. Garth was stretched out all bloody and she was trying to get his
coat off; and she couldn't. She looked up at me with a face like chalk;
and when she saw who it was, she just gave a little cry like a baby, and
keeled over. Oh, it was pitiful! I carried her down to the river. I
wouldn't let anybody else touch her.

"Well, to make a long story short, we decided to raft it down the river
to Fort Ochre, instead of trying to win overland to the Crossing. Garth
had a ball through his shoulder and a gashed hand; and Mabyn was pretty
low. It was longer that way, but we could carry them comfortable.

"We built another raft and started next morning. Jim Plaskett, Mabyn and
Rina went on the first; and Sandy Arkess, Garth, Natalie and I followed
on the other. The other two fellows were to drive all the horses back
over the prairie. Say, that was quite a journey! Garth was getting
better; and we all felt pretty good, sitting round and swapping yarns,
and looking at the scenery, while the current carried us down. When we
got out of the gorge, coming down so quietly as we were, we saw any
amount of game. Got a moose right on the bank! Gee! that was good meat!
And at night, say it was out o' sight! sitting there talking about going
home, and watching the trees march past, and a bang-up show of Northern
lights up above! It was pretty cold.

"There was the Dickens of a pow-pow at the Fort, when we got there at
last! It's great sport being a hero! The Bishop and his party were
there, just ready to start for home, and you never saw such a surprised
man, when he saw Garth coming in from the other direction. And the old
woman--I mean Mrs. Bishop--took to Natalie like her long-lost mother.

"Their party was obliged to start at once for fear of the river's
closing on them; and Garth insisted on sending Natalie out with the old
lady. She kicked like anything at leaving him there wounded; and I
braced him, too, to let her stay; but he told me it was for the sake of
her good name. I didn't quit