“I’m sure a child of fortune myself,” laughed Jack.
They soon reached the creek, which cut across the cañon at its widest part, spurting from under a ledge on one side, and disappearing with a tinkle of falling water through a crack on the other—one of those underground streams often found in the Rockies, which only by chance ever come to the light of day.
The scouts dismounted, making sure that all pursuit had been abandoned by their mounted foes, at least, and washed and dressed their slight wounds. In each man’s pouch was Indian salve, certain valuable herbs, dried, and bandages rolled for them by the women of Fort Advance. Your old frontiersman was no mean surgeon, and many a man to-day, whose early years were spent on the border, owes his life to some rough but prompt bit of surgery on the part of a pard with powder-stained fingers.
“Now, we’ll draw lots to see who goes back,” said Cody. “Wish we had a pack of cards.”
“I got what th’ boys call a Sing Sing Bible,” observed Texas Jack, drawing the pack from his pouch.
“Good! We can’t take the time to play any game, but I’ll shuffle, you cut, and the one who holds the ace of clubs goes back to Advance.”
“Agreed. Shuffle ’em good, old man—though I feel I’m going to win right now.”
“You’re too cock-sure,” laughed Buffalo Bill.
The scouts spoke in a light-hearted way, but each realized the terrible ordeal that might fall to the one who attempted to return to Fort Advance. Major Baldwin needed one of them as an adviser—and his rifle would be an acquisition as well, for both Buffalo Bill and Texas Jack were dead shots.
The uncertainty and impatience of the entire garrison would be relieved, too, if they were informed that one of the scouts had gone on to Resistence and would surely bring help the next day. This knowledge would put heart in the defenders of Fort Advance when the Indians attacked, as they surely would after nightfall.