Stub’s feet were swollen, puffy and tender, but he could walk. He and Corporal Jerry Jackson and Alex Roy managed to keep the fires going. John Sparks and Tom Dougherty lay suffering until the sweat stood on their foreheads. Their feet seemed to be turning black, and were alive with sharp pains.
“Sure, we’re like never to walk ag’in, Tom,” John moaned. “Our country’ll owe us each a pair o’ feet.”
“I know that, John. But what’ll we do wid those we have? That’s what’s botherin’ me. ’Tis cruel hard.”
“’Tis harder on you than on me, lad,” John declared. “For you’re young. An’ still, I’d like to do a bit more marchin’, myself.”
They heard never a sound from the hunters, all day. At dark the sergeant and Terry Miller came in, completely tuckered. They had not fired a shot; had seen no game, nor seen the lieutenant and the doctor, either.
“We’ll have to pull our belts in another notch, boys,” quoth the sergeant. “And trust to them other two. Had they found meat, they’d be in. If they don’t come to-night, they’ll come to-morrow. ’Tis tough for you, here by the fire; but it’s tougher on them, out yonder somewheres in the cold, with their hearts aching at the thought of us waiting and depending on ’em. Jest the same, I’d rather be any one of us, in our moccasins as we are, than Henry Kennerman serving time in his boots.”
Henry Kennerman was a soldier who had deserted on the way to the Osage towns.
The next day was the fourth without food. It passed slowly. The feet of some of the men, like those of Stub, were much better; but John Sparks and young Tom could not stand, and Hugh Menaugh and Jake Carter could not walk.
Toward evening the sergeant grew very uneasy; alarm settled over them all. No tidings of any kind had arrived from the lieutenant and Doctor Robinson.
“We’ll wait, the night,” finally said Sergeant Meek. “In the morning ’twill be up to us, for if we sit here longer we’ll be too weak to move. We’ll divide up, those of us who can walk. A part’ll have to search for them two men, for maybe they’re needing help worse’n we are, and ’tis the duty of a soldier never to abandon his officers. The rest’ll look for meat again. And we’ll none of us come in till we fetch either news or meat. Shame on us if we can’t turn to and help our officers and ourselves.”