"Speak to me, oh! speak to me, Oleah!" cried Irene, bending over him. "Oh, my love, it is I who have killed you! Save him, Uncle Dan. He must not die!"
"I fear he'll never speak again," said Uncle Dan. He said no more, for with one wild, long shriek the poor girl swooned on the breast of him whom not even the avowal of her love could thrill.
"Come here, some o' you fellars what's a loafin' about there?" commanded the old scout, as half a dozen soldiers approached the place.
The men were soon at his side.
"Now, some o' you pick up that gal, and the rest o' ye that fellar and take 'em to the house. Lift 'em gently as though they were babies. This has been a sorry job."
The soldiers obeyed, and Uncle Dan followed the group with both sorrow and amazement plainly visible on his features. They carefully laid Irene on the bed and called Mrs. Jackson to attend her, while Uncle Dan and another member of the company examined the injuries of Oleah. They found a gun-shot wound in his right side under his right arm. A rifle-ball had passed through the muscles of his right arm, between the elbow and the shoulder, but no bones were shattered and the wound was not a dangerous one. The cut on the head, caused by being thrown against the stone as he fell, seemed more serious, but an examination soon convinced them that it might not be fatal. They dressed the wounded arm and washed the blood from his head, and he began to show signs of returning consciousness just as Irene, recovered from her swoon, started up, crying:
"Where is he, where is he?"
"Here he is on the floor beside you," replied Mrs. Jackson. "Lie still until you are better."
"No, no," she replied, putting aside Mrs. Jackson's restraining hand. "Let me go to my husband! Lay him on the bed," she said to the men.
"What kind of a deuced change has come over that gal," thought Uncle Dan. "She hated him like pizen afore he got hurt, but now she loves him to distraction."