e in with a blow from Dick's rifle,
which was lying there with the stock broken. So we supposed the Captain
had had him carried to the fort, and we rode on there.

"When we got there we found as he was alive. It seems at the moment the
Captain's daughter recovered from her faint she insisted on going back
with the Captain to see if Dick was alive. They found him well-nigh
dead. He had got an arrow through the body, and two desperate clips with
tomahawks, and had been scalped, but he was still breathing. There war
no one else nigh, for every man had ridden on in pursuit; but they
managed, somehow, between them, to get him upon the Captain's horse. The
Captain he rode in the saddle, and held him in his arms, while his
daughter led her horse back to the fort. There they dressed his wounds,
and put wet cloths to his head, and watched him all night.

"In the morning he was quite delirious. Fortunately the Captain
considered that after the way they had licked the redskins the day
before there was no absolute necessity for evacuating the Fort; so the
troops cut turf and made huts, and parties were sent off to the nearest
timber to bring in boughs for roofs, and there we stopped, and in six
weeks Dick was about again with his wig on his head.

"You will wonder whar he got his wig from, seeing as that sort of thing
ain't a product of the plains; but he is wearing his own hair. Among the
fust of the Injins we overtook and killed was a chap with Dick's scalp
hanging at his girdle, and when it was known as he was alive they
searched and found it; and one of the soldiers who was fond of
collecting bird-skins, and such like, just preserved it in the same way,
and when Dick was able to go out again he presented him with his own
scalp. So if any one says to Dick as he ain't wearing his own hair, Dick
can tell him he is a liar.

"Lor', how grateful that gal was to Dick; he never was a particular
good-looking young fellow, and he wasn't improved by the scrimmage, but
I believe if he had axed her she would have given up everything and
settled down as a hunter's wife."

Dick growled an angry denial.

"Well, mate, it may be not quite that, but it war very nigh it. It was
downright pretty to see the way she hung about him, and looked after
him, just for all the world as if she had been his mother, and he a sick
child. The Captain, too, didn't know how to make enough of Dick; and as
for the men, they would have done anything for him for