I went to see. Margery rose at my approach, and even in the poor light I could see her draw herself up as if she would hold me at my proper distance.
"Your patient, Mistress Margery,—We must mount and ride at once. Is he fit?"
"No."
"But we must be far to the eastward before daybreak."
"I can not help it. If you make him ride to-night you will finish what those cruel savages began, Captain Ireton."
"We have little choice—none, I should say."
"Oh, you are bitter hard!" she cried, though wherein my offending lay just then I was wholly at a loss to know.
"'Tis your privilege to say so," I rejoined. "But as for making Dick ride, that will be but the kindest cruelty. We are only a little way from the nearest Indian towns, and if the daylight find us here—"
"Spare me," she broke in; and with that she turned shortly and asked Ephraim Yeates to put her in her saddle.
Richard was still in the fever stupor, but he roused himself at my urging and let us set him upon his beast. Once safe in the saddle, we lashed him fast like a prisoner, with a forked tree-branch at his back to hold him erect. This last was the old hunter's invention and 'twas most ingenious. The forked limb, in shape like a Y, was set astride the cantle, with the lower ends thonged stoutly to Dick's legs and to the girths. Thus the upright stem of the inverted Y became an easy back-rest for the sick man; and when he was securely lashed thereto there was little danger for him save in some stumbling of the beast he rode.