"I guess I'd better see you safe back, sir," said the trooper.
Esmond stared at him fiercely, though his face was awry with pain.
"You'll go on," he said.
Then he winced, and, moving a little, fell over with his face in the snow, and, because the boughs he had fallen among were thick, it was two hours before the troopers got him out and on the sled. It was not altogether astonishing that they managed to compound the fracture during the operation. After that Grieve pushed on alone, and he was, as it happened, from the wild bush of Northern Ontario, which, though the trees and rocks are smaller, is a very similar country. In the meanwhile Simpkin headed back for the valley with the sled, and it was not his fault that three nights of bitter frost overtook him on the way. Indeed, if he had not been an exceptionally resolute man, inured to fatigue, it is very probable that Esmond would have frozen before they reached the outpost. On the morning after they got there a trooper appeared before the miners' barricade without his carbine and hailed the men on guard.
"Have you brought along the American who fixed up Jackson's foot when he smashed his toes, boys?" he asked.
The man who had nursed Tomlinson climbed up on the log. "I'm here," he said. "Is anybody wanting me?"
"I guess Captain Esmond does," said the trooper. "He fell off a log two or three days ago, and his leg-bone has come right through. The corporal can't get it back inside him. If you can see your way to do anything, we'd be much obliged to you."
"Did Captain Esmond send you?"
"No, sir," said the trooper, "he didn't. He's way too sick to worry about anything."
The American smiled at Ingleby, who stood beneath him. "It's very probable! A compound fracture of the femur is apt to prove rather serious at this temperature, especially if our friend the corporal has been trying to reduce it. We don't owe the man anything, but I guess I'd better go along."