Cameron almost pitied him, but he spoke no word. There was nothing that one could say and besides he was far too weary for anything but rest. At the gate of the Barrack yard his old Superintendent from Fort Macleod met the party.
“You are wounded, Cameron?” exclaimed the Superintendent, glancing in alarm at Cameron's wan face.
“I have got him,” replied Cameron, loosing the lariat from the horn of his saddle and handing the end to an orderly. “But,” he added, “it seems hardly worth while now.”
“Worth while! Worth while!” exclaimed the Superintendent with as much excitement as he ever allowed to appear in his tone. “Let me tell you, Cameron, that if any one thing has kept me from getting into a blue funk during these months it was the feeling that you were on patrol along the Sun Dance Trail.”
“Funk?” exclaimed Cameron with a smile. “Funk?” But while he smiled he looked into the cold, gray eyes of his Chief, and, noting the unwonted glow in them, he felt that after all his work as the Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail was perhaps worth while.
CHAPTER XXI
WHY THE DOCTOR STAYED
The Big Horn River, fed by July suns burning upon glaciers high up between the mountain-peaks, was running full to its lips and gleaming like a broad ribbon of silver, where, after rushing hurriedly out of the rock-ribbed foothills, it settled down into a deep steady flow through the wide valley of its own name. On the tawny undulating hillsides, glorious in the splendid July sun, herds of cattle and horses were feeding, making with the tawny hillsides and the silver river a picture of luxurious ease and quiet security that fitted well with the mood of the two men sitting upon the shady side of the Big Horn Ranch House.
Inspector Dickson was enjoying to the full his after-dinner pipe, and with him Dr. Martin, who was engaged in judiciously pumping the Inspector in regard to the happenings of the recent campaign—successfully, too, except where he touched those events in which the Inspector himself had played a part.