But see! can they be mistaken? Did not his lips move? They did, and now they move again. A sigh is breathed, and presently one faint word is ejaculated.
The word was “Water.”
“He’ll live,” cried Seth; “he’ll live! This is the proudest day for the old trapper in the whole course of his born existence.”
And the cry of Rory for water was indeed the first sign of returning life. A few drops of the juice of that wonderful plant were squeezed into the wounded boy’s mouth, and, ten minutes after, the colour had returned to his face, and he was sleeping as sweetly and soundly as ever he had slept in his life.
McBain squeezed the hand of the honest trapper. In silence he pressed the trapper’s hand. Perhaps he could not have spoken at that moment had he wished to do so, for there was a moisture in his eyes that he had no need to be ashamed of.
While Rory sleeps calmly by the rude log fire, there is other and sadly mournful work to be attended to, for three of the Snowbird’s brave crew lie stark and stiff. So the dead had to be laid out, and the graves dug, where, as soon as sunrise, they would lie side by side with those who had so lately been their foes.
Two more men were wounded, but none so severely as Rory.
There was little sleep for any one in the camp that night, for they were constantly in dread of a renewed attack by the savages. Even the luxury of a fire was a danger, and yet upon this depended Rory’s very existence; but patrols were kept constantly moving through the forest near to prevent surprises.
“Yet I don’t think,” said Seth, “that them bothering blueskins will come around again. We’ve given them such a taste of our steel and our shooting-irons that it ain’t likely they’ll have an appetite for more for some days to come.”
“Shall you hunt them up in the morning,” asked Allan, “and have revenge?”