There was a general murmur of approval, for all felt silent and awed at being so close to the house of death and sorrow. Two men got their horses, and rode off to fetch the sheep. The others carried the various articles requisite up to the place fixed for the bivouac, while Wilkins was installed in the house, to assist in anything that might be required there.
"The poor things told me to tell you, captain, how grateful they felt to you for the exertions you have made. I told them how it was we came to be here; and how you had ridden, when you got the news, to be here in time. Mrs. Donald did not say much, poor thing, she seemed half dazed; but her sister, who seems wonderfully cool and collected, quite realized what they had escaped; and there's many a young fellow who would give a good deal, to win that look of gratitude she gave me when she said:
"'I shall never forget what I owe you all.'
"I am just going to send off one of my men, to fetch my wife over here. It will be a comfort to the two girls, for they are little more, to have a woman with them."
"There's nothing to be done for Donald, I suppose?" Reuben asked.
"Nothing. The wound is hardly bleeding at all. I told them that, as far as I knew, the best thing was to keep on it a flannel dipped in warm water, and wrung out; and that they should give him a little broth, or weak brandy and water, whenever he seemed faint. My surgery does not go beyond that. If it had been a smashed finger, or a cut with an axe, or even a broken limb, I might have been some good; for I have seen plenty of accidents of all kinds, since I came out twenty years ago, but a bullet wound in the body is beyond me, altogether."
After the meal was cooked and eaten, there was a consultation as to what had best be done next. Two or three of the settlers who were married men said that they would go home, as their wives would be anxious about them. The rest agreed to stop for, at any rate, another day.
Mr. Barker had found out from Mrs. Donald's sister the direction in which the sheep and cattle were grazing, and two or three of the party rode off to tell the shepherds and herdsmen—for there were three men on the farm, in addition to those who had been killed—what had happened; and to tell them that they had better bring the sheep and cattle up to within a mile or so of the house, and come in themselves for their stores, when required.
A grave was now dug, and the three men buried. In the afternoon Mrs. Barker arrived, and at once took charge of the affairs of the house. In the evening Mr. Barker came up to the fire round which the men were sitting.
"Will you come down to the house, Captain Whitney? The ladies have expressed a wish to see you. They want to thank you for what you have done."