Part 1 (2/2)
”Injuns can shoot,” said I, ”but they cayn't hit.”
”Two of my men are dead and the third is dying. I defer to your--er--experience, but I thought they could--er--hit.”
Then I began to reckon I'd been some hazardous in my actions. It made me sweat to think.
”Well,” said I, to be civil, ”I cal'late I'd best introduce myself to you-all. My name's Davies.”
”I'm Lord Balshannon,” said he, mighty polite.
”And I'm the Honourable Jim du Chesnay,” squeaked the kid.
I took his paw and said I was proud to know a warrior with such heap big names. The man laughed.
”Wall, Mister Balshannon,” says I, ”your horses is remnants, and the near fore wheel of that waggon is sprung to bust, and them Apaches has chipped your laig, which it's broke out bleeding again, so I reckon----”
”You have an eye for detail,” he says, laughing; ”but if you will excuse me now, I'm rather busy.”
He looked into my eyes cool and smiling, asking for no help, ready to rely on himself if I wanted to go. A lump came into my throat, for I sure loved that man from the beginning.
”Mr. Balshannon,” says I, ”put this kid on top of a waggon to watch for Indians, while you dress that wound. I'm off.”
He turned his back on me and walked away.
”I'll be back,” said I, busy unloading my pack-horse. ”I'll be back,” I called after him, ”when I bring help!”
At that he swung sudden and came up against me. ”Er--thanks,” he said, and grabbed my paw. ”I'm awfully obliged, don't you know.”
I swung to my saddle and loped off for help.
CHAPTER II
LORD BALSHANNON
With all the signs and the signal smokes pointing for war, I reckoned I could dispense with that Ocean and stay round to see the play. Moreover, there was this British lord, lost in the desert, wounded some, helpless as a baby, game as a grizzly bear, ringed round with dead horses and dead Apaches, and his troubles appealed to me plentiful. I scouted around until I hit a live trail, then streaked away to find people. I was doubtful if I had done right in case that lord got ma.s.sacred, me being absent, so I rode hard, and at noon saw the smoke of a camp against the Tres Hermanos Mountains. It proved to be a cow camp with all the boys at dinner.
They had heard nothing of Apaches out on the war trail, but when I told what I knew, they came glad, on the dead run, their waggons and pony herd following. We found the Britisher digging graves for three dead men, and looking apt to require a fourth for his own use.
”Er--good evening,” says he, and I began to wonder why I'd sweated myself so hot to rescue an iceberg.
”Gentlemen,” says he to the boys, ”you find some er--coffee ready beside the fire, and afterwards, if you please, we will bury my dead.”
The boys leaned over in their saddles, wondering at him, but the lord's cool eye looked from face to face, and we had to do what he said. He was surely a great chief, that Lord Balshannon.
The men who had fallen a prey to the Apaches were two teamsters and a Mexican, all known to these Bar Y riders, and they were sure sorry. But more than that they enjoyed this shorthorn, this tenderfoot from the east who could stand off an outfit of hostile Indians with his lone rifle. They saw he was wounded, yet he dug graves for his dead, made coffee for the living, and thought of everything except himself. After coffee we lined up by the graves to watch the bluff he made at funeral honours. Lord Balshannon was a colonel in the British Army, and he stood like an officer on parade reading from a book. His black hair was touched silver, his face was strong, hard, manful, and his voice quivered while he read from the little book--
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