But even though he spoke thus lightly, the young sergeant felt the loss of the fine wrist-watch keenly. As said before, it had been a present from the folks at home, and was quite valuable.
“I should have been more careful about it,” he told himself rather bitterly. “I certainly was careless.”
The lightning and thunder now seemed to shift to the westward, but the rain continued to come down almost as heavily as before. Roger hopped along for quite a distance, but then intimated that he would have to rest.
“We’ll carry you as we did before, Roger,” said Dave. “It isn’t very far to the cliff from here.”
“I don’t see why I had to have such rotten luck trying to cross the gully,” remarked the injured one dolefully. “I suppose this will send me to the hospital for a few days at least, and I don’t want to go. I want to be in the thick of what is doing.”
“I think we’ll all have to rest up a bit, Roger, if this storm keeps on,” announced Dave. “The fact is, I don’t think the plans for the next advance are quite worked out yet,” he continued.
Presently the three came in sight of the cliff, and a few minutes later were down in the hollow where Dave and Phil had left the others. A shout went up from Ben and Shadow at their appearance.
“Hello! so you found him, did you?” cried Shadow. “That’s fine!”
“What’s the matter with your foot, Roger?” demanded Ben.
“Oh, I twisted my ankle a bit between the rocks.”