Molly Wingate, who stood ready now with bandages, told him how alike the two arrow wounds had been.
"Take an' chaw tobacker, ma'am," said he. "Put a hunk on each side, do-ee mind, an' she'll be well."
"Go on and tell us the rest," someone demanded.
"Not much to tell that ye couldn't of knew, gentlemen," resumed the scout. "Ef ye'd sont back fer us we'd of jined ye, shore, but ye didn't send."
"How could we send, man?" demanded Woodhull savagely. "How could we know where you were, or whether you'd come--or whether you'd have been of any use if you had?"
"Well, we knew whar you-all was, 't any rate," rejoined Jackson. "We was two days back o' ye, then one day. Our captain wouldn't let us crowd in, fer he said he wasn't welcome an' we wasn't needed.
"That was ontel we struck the big Crow trail, with you all a follerin' o' hit blind, a-chasin' trouble as hard as ye could. Then he sont me on ahead to warn ye an' to ask ef we should jine on. We knowed the Crows was down atter the train.
[pg 250]
"I laid down to sleep, I did, under a sagebrush, in the sun, like a fool. I was beat out an' needed sleep, an' I thought I was safe fer a leetle while. When I woke up it was a whoop that done hit. They was around me, laughin', twenty arrers p'inted, an' some shot inter the ground by my face. I taken my chance, an' shook hands. They grabbed me an' tied me. Then they made me guide them in, like ye seen. They maybe didn't know I come from the east an' not from the west.