his
eyes opened, and he grinned as he whispered, "Hullo, Captain," to the
man bending over him. The man held water to the boy's lips, and he
sipped a little and swam out into the blackness again, and then the
man reappeared and the boy tried to smile and whispered, "Aw--I'm all
right." They saw he was coming out of his faint, and one by one the
crowd dropped away from him; but Ward stayed, and when the child could
speak, he replied to Ward's question, "'Cause I wanted to." And then
again when the question was repeated, the boy said, "I tell you 'cause
I wanted to." He shook his head feebly and grinned again and tried to
rise, but the man gently held him down, and kept bathing his temples
with cold water from the spring beside them. Finally, when the man
seemed a little harsh in his questions, the boy's eyes brimmed and he
said: "Whur'd my pa be if he was alive to-day? I just guess I got as
much right here as you have." He made a funny little picture lying on
the lush grass by the spring in the woods; his browned face, washed
clean on the forehead and temples, showed almost white under the dirt.
There were tear-stained rings about the eyes, and his pink shirt and
blue trousers were grimy with dust, and the red clay of the Sycamore
still was on the sides of his dust-brown bare feet. Around a big toe
was a rag which showed a woman's tying--neat and firm, but red with
clay.

Ward left, and Bob Hendricks came and stood over the prostrate boy.
Bob was carrying a bucket of water to the cook as a peace offering.

"What did they do?" asked the boy on the ground.

"Just shook me--and then said father'd tend to me for this." The boys
exchanged comments on the situation without words, and then Bob said
as he drew the dripping bucket from the spring, "We're going clear on
to Leavenworth, and they say then we've got to come back with Ezra
Lane and the teams."

The boy on the ground raised himself by rolling over and catching hold
of a sapling. He panted a moment, and "I'll bet y' I don't." The other
boy went away with a weak "Me neither," thrown over his shoulder.

During that long afternoon, and all the next day and the next, the
boys ran from wagon to wagon, climbing over end gates, wriggling among
the men, running with the horses through the shady woods, paddling in
the fords, and only refusing to move when the men got out of the
wagons and walked up the long clay hills that rise above the Kaw
River. At night they camped by