"All the hard work falls on you, Mr. Atherton; it is too bad," Mrs. Renshaw said with grateful tears in her eyes.
"It will do me a world of good, Mrs. Renshaw. I must have lost over a stone weight since yesterday. If this sort of thing were to go on for a few weeks I should get into fighting condition. Now, are you both ready? Lift."
In a short time they came to the point where Wilfrid and the child were sitting down together. Wilfrid had been impressing upon her that her father was hurt, and that she must be very good and quiet, and walk along quietly by her mother's side. So when they came along she got up and approached them with a subdued and awe-struck air. She took the hand her mother held out to her.
"Is father very bad, mother?" she asked in a low tone.
"He is better than he was, dear, and we must hope and pray that he will soon be well again; but at present you must not speak to him. He must be kept very quiet and not allowed to talk."
"You sit where you are, Wilfrid, I will come back for you in half an hour," Mr. Atherton said.
"That you won't Mr. Atherton," Wilfrid said, getting up. "I have had a long rest, for, except for pulling my trigger and loading, I have done nothing since the first short walk when we started this morning. All this excitement has done me a lot of good, and I feel as if I could walk ever so far."
"Well, put your rifle in the litter, then," Mr. Atherton said; "its weight will make no difference to us, and it will make a lot of difference to you; when you are tired say so."
Wilfrid struggled on resolutely, refusing to stop until they reached a stream two miles from the starting-place. Here they rested for an hour. The settler's wounds were washed and rebandaged, the others partook of a meal of bread and water, and they then continued the journey. At the end of another half-mile Wilfrid was obliged to own that his strength could hold out no longer, but he refused positively to accept Mr. Atherton's proposal to come back for him.
"I will not hear of it, Mr. Atherton," he said. "From what Mrs. Sampson says it is another eight or ten miles to the Mahia country. There is not the least fear of any of the Hau-Haus following on our track. The best way by far is this: I will go a hundred yards into the bush and lie down. You push on. It will be dark before you finish your journey as it is, you would not get there till to-morrow morning if you had to keep on coming back for me; besides, you would never get on with the litter after it is dark. Leave me a piece of bread, a bottle of water, my rifle and revolver, and I shall be as comfortable among the bushes there as if I were in bed. In the morning you can send out a party of Mahias to fetch me in. If you break down a small bough here by the side of the way, that will be quite sufficient to tell the natives where they are to turn off from the path to look for me."