“What’s that on your coat and breeches? Say, you’re all bloody!” exclaimed Mazarine. “Why, they shot you!”
“Yes, they got me,” was Orlando’s husky reply, and he gave a funny little laugh. Giggling, people had called it.
“How are we going to get you home?” Mazarine asked. “You can’t ride.”
At that moment there was the rumbling jolt of a wagon. It was the pioneer-emigrant returning from Askatoon to his camp.
A few minutes later Orlando was lying on some bags in the emigrant’s wagon, while Mazarine rode beside it. “It’s only a few hundred yards to the house,” said the emigrant sympathetically, as he looked down at the now unconscious figure in the wagon.
“It’s four miles to his house,” said Mazarine. “Well, I’m not taking him four miles to his house or any house,” said the emigrant. “My horse has had enough to-day, and the sooner the lad’s attended to, the better. He’s going to the nearest house, and that’s Tralee, as they call it, just here.”
“That’s my house,” gruffly replied the old man. “Well, that’s where you want him to go, ain’t it?” asked the pioneer sharply. He could not understand the owner of Tralee.
“Yes, that’s where I want him to go,” replied Mazarine slowly.
“Then you ride ahead on the trail, and I’ll follow,” returned the other decisively.
“What’s the matter? Who hurt him?” he presently called to Mazarine, riding in front.