'Listen!' said Dick, 'if we do come down amongst them, do each of you run for your lives, and each one in a different direction. If anyone gets safely through, let him try to make off to the dead-wood track and hide where Snap fell down until he can get a chance of getting clear back to Rosebud. But it ain't no good talking,' he muttered with a sigh, 'who is a-goin' to get through that crowd of Crows without even a six-shooter? Great Scott! if we could only get beyond 'em in this mist!' he added.
SNAP'S SACRIFICE
'Yes, we could slip them well if we did, and all would be saved?' said Snap in a questioning tone, with a strange little shake in his voice which no one ever noticed before. 'Do you think, Dick, you could get us all back to Rosebud if we did drift by the camp in this fog to-night?' he asked again.
'Sure, lad! but what's the good of talking?' he replied.
'No, it isn't, Dick,' said Snap, his face strangely white and drawn, and the big brown eyes looking misty and dim; 'but if any of us do get through (it will be over in a minute now) let the others tell the story at home. Frank, old boy, give the mother my love; tell her Snap did his best.'
The voice was so strange (there was almost a sob in it) that all three turned their eyes from the scene below—the approaching tents and fires, right below them—to Snap. It was too late! As they turned they saw him slip from his seat on the ring; for one moment the strong brown hands clung to it, the brave face looked at them; the fearless lips murmured 'Good-bye, save them Dick!' and then the balloon sprang up again, and, as poor, half-maddened Wharton said, 'twelve stone of the bravest flesh as God ever put breath into' dropped through the darkness, there was a faint thud, heard even by those in the rapidly rising balloon, and Snap had done his duty. He had given his life for his friends. More than that no man can do.