Ginger flung the saddle blanket over Snort’s steaming back, turned up her collar, and sat down, the runaway’s rope in her hand, to wait for the first graying of the dawn.
“I have brought Snort back to you.”
After all, she was going to be able to say it. She folded her arms across her knees and laid her throbbing head on them, and slept a little in snatches, dreaming high-colored, stirring dreams.
CHAPTER XVII
DEAN WOLCOTT and his Scout slept soddenly for hours and woke, aching and hungry, in the early dusk.
“Well, this is a bone-headed business, Scout,” said the Ranger, disgustedly. “We should have got back to the horses by daylight. Tumble out! We’ll have to shake a leg!”
The boy pulled himself gallantly together but he was clearly exhausted. “Oh, we’ve got our flash light, Ranger. We’ll be all right!”
“We’ll be all right as long as the flash holds out, but it needs a new battery, and the new battery is in the saddlebags at White Pines.” He shook off the mantling fatigue. “We’ll be all right anyway, of course. It won’t be pitch dark for an hour yet, and we’ll save the light till we absolutely need it. Wait—let’s see how we’re fixed for water!” He picked up the canteens and investigated. “Water’s your best friend, old son, and we’re going to have prize thirsts for days to come. What?— Yes, of course, there’s the spring at White Pines, but it’s beastly hard to locate after dark.”
He found that they had less than a canteen between them so he made the boy rest again while he clambered down the charred and fog-drenched slope to the spring. It was trampled and muddied by the fleeing animals and choked with burnt leaves and twigs; it was a slow job to fill the two canteens and make his way back to the trail, and he found the Scout asleep.
“Tumble, out, old boy!” he said, rousing him reluctantly, for he looked white and spent and very childish in the half light. “But we want to get back to Snort and Mabel, don’t we?”