"We didn't draw rein till it was dark, and next morning we counted two hundred and fifteen dead redskins on the plains. The first thing in the morning, Rube and me rode back to where the fight began, to give Dick a burial. We looked about, but couldn't find him. There was Black Dog, with one of his bullets through his forehead, two others shot through the body, and one with his skull stove in with a blow from Dick's rifle, which was lying there with the stock broken. So we supposed the Captain had had him carried to the fort, and we rode on there.
"When we got there we found as he was alive. It seems at the moment the Captain's daughter recovered from her faint she insisted on going back with the Captain to see if Dick was alive. They found him well-nigh dead. He had got an arrow through the body, and two desperate clips with tomahawks, and had been scalped, but he was still breathing. There war no one else nigh, for every man had ridden on in pursuit; but they managed, somehow, between them, to get him upon the Captain's horse. The Captain he rode in the saddle, and held him in his arms, while his daughter led her horse back to the fort. There they dressed his wounds, and put wet cloths to his head, and watched him all night.
"In the morning he was quite delirious. Fortunately the Captain considered that after the way they had licked the redskins the day before there was no absolute necessity for evacuating the Fort; so the troops cut turf and made huts, and parties were sent off to the nearest timber to bring in boughs for roofs, and there we stopped, and in six weeks Dick was about again with his wig on his head.
"You will wonder whar he got his wig from, seeing as that sort of thing ain't a product of the plains; but he is wearing his own hair. Among the fust of the Injins we overtook and killed was a chap with Dick's scalp hanging at his girdle, and when it was known as he was alive they searched and found it; and one of the soldiers who was fond of collecting bird-skins, and such like, just preserved it in the same way, and when Dick was able to go out again he presented him with his own scalp. So if any one says to Dick as he ain't wearing his own hair, Dick can tell him he is a liar.
"Lor', how grateful that gal was to Dick; he never was a particular good-looking young fellow, and he wasn't improved by the scrimmage, but I believe if he had axed her she would have given up everything and settled down as a hunter's wife."
Dick growled an angry denial.
"Well, mate, it may be not quite that, but it war very nigh it. It was downright pretty to see the way she hung about him, and looked after him, just for all the world as if she had been his mother, and he a sick child. The Captain, too, didn't know how to make enough of Dick; and as for the men, they would have done anything for him for having saved the life of Queen May. I heard, three or four years afterwards, as she married the young officer who was in command of the horse-soldiers at the next fort."
"But tell me," Frank said, "how did Dick manage to get her away from the Indians?"
"That," Abe said, "he'd better tell you himself, seeing as concerning that part of the business he knows more nor I do. Now, Dick, speak out."
"There ain't much to tell," Dick said gruffly, taking the pipe from his mouth. "Directly as we got back to camp, and I found she had gone, it seemed to me as I had got to follow her; and my eye lighting on the loose horse, I soon managed to catch the critter, and, shifting my saddle to it, I started. As you may guess, there war no difficulty in following the trail. They had ridden all night, though they knew there was no chance of their being pursued. But about fifty miles from the fort I came upon their first halting-place; they had lit fires and cooked food there, and had waited some hours.