"What's the matter?" I asked, weakly.
"An old wound on his head has broken," replied one of the men, in a low voice. "I'm afraid he's in a pretty bad way."
I put down the brown bottle which had comforted me, and I saw that the colonel in fact was in a bad way. He was unconscious, and his breathing was weak. He seemed to have collapsed after a season of fever and excitement followed by the great physical strain put upon him by the attempted rescue of me.
I was struck with remorse. My arrival at Fort Defiance had caused all this trouble. Yet my going there was an accident, not a matter that I could have helped.
I sent one of the men after Dr. Ambrose, pointing out the direction in which he had gone, and urging the man to make all haste. Then we lifted the colonel and carried him to the hut, where with overcoats and blankets we fixed up a warm bed for him and did what else we could until the doctor came, which was not till late.
"He has about an even chance, Miss Hetherill," said the doctor, after he had made his examination. "The odds might be his if I had here all that I need, but this is no hospital. I think it is best to tell you the exact truth."
I thought so too. There are women and women; some are brave and some are not; I like the brave ones best. She became chief nurse at once. Lucky it is for a man, ill in such a place, to have a woman's care. I, still feeling remorse, although my reason told me I was not at fault, helped all I could.
The snow ceased, and toward evening the colonel grew stronger. Dr. Ambrose had managed to close up the reopened wound and stop the bleeding, but a burning fever came over him and he began to talk very wildly. Then I saw how the things on which a man's mind is centred when he wakes come out again in sleep or delirium. His talk was all of the war and the old battles, which he was fighting as if he rode and charged in them again.
I, who loved the Union, could not help feeling a deep sympathy for him, he seemed to have taken the matter so much to heart. When he rambled on to the end of the war,—that is, the end according to history,—and repeated again and again his declaration to stand out forever, I was touched, and touched very deeply. Some one brought him the news that Lee was dead.
"I will not believe it," he cried, in his delirium. "It's a lie. He is living, and he will lead us again."