“Then you think some of the poor chaps may be lying there still, do you?” asked Alec, with a vein of real pity in his voice; for the sight of all that suffering had caused his heart to beat much more kindly for these poor foreigners.
“I hope it’s a mistake,” replied Hugh, as they all hurried off. “In case there are any who have been hurt too badly to get away, you can see how they might continue to lie there until they bled to death. The guards behind the stockade are afraid to show themselves after doing what they did; and the strikers are just as much averse to going near the works, with those men waiting to pour in another awful volley at sight of them.”
“Whew! I hope they won’t try that game on us,” said Bud Morgan, though for all that he did not lessen his pace a particle, because Bud did not know what fear was, to tell the truth.
“Oh, there’s little danger of their being so badly rattled as that,” said Hugh. “I mean to call out and tell the one in command just how we happened to be near by, and felt it to be our duty to do all we could for the strikers who were hurt. It may, in the end, save some of those reckless guards from being tried for murder.”
“Just what it might,” said Alec. “That man was shot in the back, which shows he was running away. Only a coward would fire on retreating men who were unarmed.”
“Hold on, don’t say too much just now,” cautioned Hugh. “We’re getting near the stockade, you notice. And here’s a poor fellow trying to limp along, though he’s badly hurt in the leg.”
The man saw them and looked worried as he clung to a tree waiting for them to reach him. Perhaps the white flag which Hugh again carried eased his mind somewhat, and when the boy spoke to him the tone of his voice was certainly reassuring.
“You are hurt, I see,” said Hugh, pointing to the other’s left leg, which showed all the terrible signs of a serious wound; the poor fellow had managed to tie his red bandana handkerchief around the limb, and above the bullet wound, as though he may have served in the army at one time, and knew something about the use of a tourniquet to stop the bleeding.
He must have understood what Hugh said, for he nodded his head. Then the scout waved him on, and pointed to the camp.
“Go to camp and doctor look after you—understand, with medicine like this,” and he even opened his little kit to let the man glimpse its contents which might tell him more than words could convey.