“Then it’s all right,” cried Ned.
“It’s very good of you, old fellow.”
“Bah! Rubbish! Stuff! I say, are you so very sore?”
“I can’t hardly move some ways.”
“Like me to give you a rub?”
“Oh no,” said Chris, increasing the friction he was applying across the small of his back. “I shall be better soon. Only it’s just as if I’d been hammered all over. But how queer that I should sleep like that!”
“Not a bit of it. The doctor said it was all right and it would do you good.”
“Where is he?” cried Chris.
“Along with Wilton, watching the Indians down at the gulch. Father’s up yonder along with old Griggs, keeping an eye on the top of the cliff, and shooting the birds that rise out of the hollows and rifts there. They come down our part to get at the water.”
“Then you’ve been all alone?”