We ran up to him and demanded his surrender. He was too much exhausted to speak, but he nodded as if he were glad the thing was over. We let him rest until his breath came back. Then he climbed to his feet, and, looking at us, said in the fashion of one defending himself:
“I did the best I could; you can’t say I didn’t.”
“I guess you did,” I replied. “You went farther than any of your comrades.”
He was a most likely young fellow, not more than twenty, I should say, and I was very glad he had come out of the affair unhurt. We took him back to the valley, where the conflict was over. Our re-enforcements had come up so fast that the remainder of the British surrendered after a few shots. All the prisoners were delivered to one of our captains who had arrived, and he took them away. Then I turned my attention to Whitestone. Having some small knowledge of surgery, I asked him to let me see his arm. He held it out without a word.
I pushed up his sleeve and found that the bullet had cut only a little below the skin. I bound up the scratch with a piece of old white cloth, and said:
“You needn’t bother about that, Whitestone; the bullet that cut it wasn’t very well aimed.”
“It was aimed pretty well, I think, for a woman,” he said.
“You won’t say any more about that, Whitestone, will you?” I asked quietly.
“Not to anybody unless to you,” he replied.
There was a faint smile on his face that I did not altogether like; but he thrust his hand into the inside pocket of his waistcoat, took out his pipe, lighted the tobacco with great deliberation, and began to smoke as if nothing had happened.