Lying amid the blood-stained sage-grass, his shirt stripped into
bandages to tie up a grievously injured limb, lay "Roving Dick," his
face pallid, his lips bloodless, and his general appearance that of
one whom death has nearly overtaken.

"Daddy! daddy!" Dick cried piteously, and then he understood that
consciousness had deserted the wounded man.

He had retained possession of his faculties until aid was near at
hand, and then the long strain of physical and mental agony had
brought about a collapse.

Dick raised his father's head tenderly, imploring him to speak--to
tell him what should be done; but the injured man remained silent as
if death had interposed to give him relief.

Looking about scrutinizingly, as those born and bred on the frontier
learn to do early in life, Dick saw his father's rifle twenty feet or
more away, and between it and him a trail of blood through the
sage-brush, then a sinister, crimson blotch on the sand.

Mr. Stevens's right leg was the injured member, and it had been
wrapped so tightly with the improvised bandages that the boy could
form no idea as to the extent of the wound; but he knew it must indeed
be serious to overcome so thoroughly one who, though indolent by
nature, had undergone much more severe suffering than he could have
known since the time of leaving the wagon to search for game.

It seemed to Dick as if more than ten minutes elapsed before his
father spoke, and then it was to ask for water.

He might as well have begged for gold, so far as Dick's ability to
gratify the desire was concerned.

"To get any, daddy, I may have to go way back to the wagon, for I
haven't come upon a single watercourse since leaving camp this morning."

"Your mother and Margie?"

"I left them at the camp. How did you get here?"

"It was just before nightfall. I had been stalking an antelope; was
crawling on the ground dragging my rifle, when the hammer must have
caught amid the sage-brush; the weapon was discharged, and the bone of
my leg appears to be shattered."

"Poor, poor daddy!" and Dick kissed him on the forehead.

"We must be four miles from the camp," Mr. Stevens said, speaking with
difficulty because of his parched and swollen tongue.

"I should say so; but I went toward the west, and after travelling
until noon struck across this way, so have no idea of the distance."

"I shall die for lack of water, Dick, even though the wound does not
kill me."

"How shall I get it