As the youth uttered the words the man who had fallen picked himself up in a dazed way. He walked a few paces in one direction and then turned and walked in another. Clearly he did not know what he was doing.
“He has been struck and is hurt,” said Joseph Morris. “Hello, come this way!” he called out. “Come this way!”
The man at first paid no attention, but presently he came towards them, reeling and staggering from weakness. One arrow was sticking through his arm, and the second had grazed the back of his head.
“Save me!” he moaned. “Don’t let the—them ki—kill me!”
“We’ll do what we can for you,” answered Joseph Morris, and ran to take the man by the arm. He was an utter stranger, tall and slim, with curly black hair and dark eyes. His clothing had once been of the best, but was now much soiled and in rags.
“The Indians—they are all coming!” gasped the man, when he felt able to speak once more. “They have plotted to fall upon a pack-train bound for th—the we—west. I was their prisoner and thought to—to get to the pack-train and warn them of——” He tried to go on, but could not, and sank a leaden weight in Joseph Morris’s arms.
“Poor fellow, he is almost done for,” said one of the frontiersmen. “I don’t think he will live.”
“Let us carry him into camp,” answered Joseph Morris. “He may not be so badly hurt as you think.”
The two frontiersmen who had come up with Mr. Morris picked the senseless form up and hurried to the camp with it, where they did what they could for the sufferer. In the meantime Joseph Morris did a little scouting around, but could see nothing more of the Indians.
“The alarm has frightened them off for the time being,” said Mr. Morris. “They may be too cowardly to attack us while we are wide-awake and on the watch.”