wn head, for rock chips and spattering lead flew on every side,
scratching, but not seriously wounding him.

And then, when they "thought on vengeance" and the three brown muzzles
swept the opposite wall, there followed a moment of utter silence,
broken only by the faint gasping of the dying man. "Creep back to
Carmody, you," muttered Blakely to the trembling lad beside him. "You
are of no account here unless they try to charge. Give him water,
quick." Then to Stern, his one unhurt man, "You heard what he said
about distant firing. Did you hear it?"

"Not I, sir, but I believe _they_ did--an' be damned to them!" And
Stern's eyes never left the opposite cliff, though his ears were
strained to catch the faintest sound from the lower canon. It was
there they last had seen the troop. It was from that direction help
should come. "Watch them, but don't waste a shot, man. I must speak to
Carmody," said Blakely, under his breath, as he backed on hands and
knees, a painful process when one is sore wounded. Trembling,
whimpering like whipped child, the poor, spiritless lad sent to the
aid of the stricken and heroic, crouched by the sergeant's side,
vainly striving to pour water from a clumsy canteen between the
sufferer's pallid lips. Carmody presently sucked eagerly at the
cooling water, and even in his hour of dissolution seemed far the
stronger, sturdier of the two--seemed to feel so infinite a pity for
his shaken comrade. Bleeding internally, as was evident, transfixed by
the cruel shaft they did not dare attempt to withdraw, even if the
barbed steel would permit, and drooping fainter with each swift
moment, he was still conscious, still brave and uncomplaining. His
dimmed and mournful eyes looked up in mute appeal to his young
commander. He knew that he was going fast, and that whatever rescue
might come to these, his surviving fellow-soldiers, there would be
none for him; and yet in his supreme moment he seemed to read the
question on Blakely's lips, and his words, feeble and broken, were
framed to answer.

"Couldn't--you hear 'em, lieutenant?" he gasped. "I can't
be--mistaken. I know--the old--Springfield _sure_! I heard 'em way
off--south--a dozen shots," and then a spasm of agony choked him, and
he turned, writhing, to hide the anguish on his face. Blakely grasped
the dying soldier's hand, already cold and limp and nerveless, and
then his own voice seemed, too, to break and falter.

"Don't try to talk, Carmody; don'