ttered
about the valley hunting, killing rattlesnakes that the sunshine had
tempted out on the rocks before their cave hiding-places, or tramping up
and down about the river banks. Hearing my name called, I looked out,
only to see Bud disappearing and John Mac, who had mistaken him for me,
calling after him. John Mac, leading the other three, Hadley and Reed
and Pete, each with his hands on the shoulders of the one before him,
were marching in locked step across the open space.

"The rascal's heading for the sanctuary," I said to myself. "I'll
follow and surprise him."

I had nearly reached the foot of the low bluff when a pistol shot, clear
and sharp, sounded out; and I thought I heard a smothered cry in the
direction Bud had taken. "Somebody hunting turkey or killing snakes,"
was my mental comment. Rifles and revolvers were popping here and there,
telling that the boys were out on a hunting bout or at target practice.
As I rounded a huge bowlder, beyond which the little climb to our cove
began, I saw Bud staggering toward me. At the same time half a dozen of
the boys, Pete and Reed and John Mac among them, came hurrying around
the angle of another projecting rock shelf.

Bud's face was pallid, and his blue eyes were full of pathos. I leaped
toward him, and he fell into my arms. A hole in his coat above his heart
told the story,--a bullet and internal bleeding. I stretched him out on
the grassy bank and the soldiers gathered around him.

"Somebody's made an awful mistake," John Mac said bitterly. "The boys
are hunting over on the other side of the bluff. We heard them shooting
turkey, and then we heard one shot and a scream. The boys don't know
what they've done."

"I'm glad they don't," I murmured.

"We were back there; you can't get down in front," Reed said. They did
not know of our little nest on the front side of the bluff.

"I'm all right, Phil," Bud said, and smiled up at me and reached for my
hand. "I'm glad you didn't come. I told O'mie latht night where to find
it." And then his mind wandered, and he began to talk of home.

"Run for the surgeon, somebody," one of the boys urged; and John Mac was
off at the word.

"It ain't no use," Pete declared, kneeling beside the wounded boy. "He's
got no need for a surgeon."

And I knew he was right. I had seen the same thing before on reeking
sands under a blazing September sky.

I took the boy's head in my lap and held his hand and stroked that shock
of ye