“Why, how long since you had anything to eat?”
“Three days, I think. I lived for some days on one of those grey wolves, but since that was finished up I’ve lived on snow, which I got from the roof through that hole up there.”
On hearing this Percy and I bustled about to get supper ready, while Jack, spreading our blankets upon the floor, ordered Bates to lie down upon them, and not to say another word until he had been fed; an order which Bates, not being able to help himself, obeyed.
The supper of bread and meat being ready, Bates was given a goodly portion, which, with a self-control I had not expected of him, he ate with great deliberation; and very much better he looked for it.
“Feel better, don’t you?” said Jack, seeing how the colour had come back to his face. “Now, if you feel strong enough, I’d like to hear how you came here, and what you have been doing since you escaped from us in the dust-storm near Bozeman a month ago. But first of all we’ll make a bargain with you:— If you’ll do what you can to help us get back our horses, we’ll say nothing about your part in the business.”
“Will you promise?” asked Bates, looking eagerly from one to the other of us.
“Yes; we’ll promise,” we all three replied; not knowing that by so doing we were compounding a felony—though I doubt if it would have made any difference if we had known.
“Well, then,” said he, brightening up wonderfully, “I’ll promise too, and I’ll tell you all about it. When we escaped from you in the dust-storm——”
“Hold up a bit,” Jack interrupted. “I just wanted to tell you that we had no intention of turning you over to the sheriff that time; we had agreed to let you escape.”
“Had you?” exclaimed Bates. “I wish I’d known it; I never would have run away, for I should have been only too glad to part company with Morgan. Well, when we escaped that day, we rode for twenty miles without stopping, and camped in a secluded place not far from a ranch. In the morning Morgan watched until the people went out to the fields, and then he slipped down to the house, and came back presently with a bridle for his horse, a rifle and cartridges, and a piece of beef, all of which, of course, he had stolen. Then we mounted again and rode off. We were afraid to go back to the thieves’ den for the stolen horses, so, at Morgan’s suggestion, we went straight up the Yellowstone River, in the hope of being able to run off the stock of the Survey-party. We came across a party, but whether of the Survey or not I don’t know, and made an attempt to steal their horses; but they were too sharp for us, and chased us up into the high mountains, where the country was so terribly rough that we had to abandon our own horses and go afoot. We did not know where we were, until we found ourselves one morning upon the top of the wall, looking down into the valley of the Mushroom Rock. Almost as soon as we recognised the place we saw two of you walk up the valley, climb a ladder, and disappear up the mountain. As Swayne did not appear we concluded that he—and the dog as well, perhaps—was on guard somewhere; so, by Morgan’s advice, we descended the ladder and took up a station among the trees whence we could watch your camp; our idea, or, rather, Morgan’s idea being that if the sentinel should leave his post for any reason we would slip across the valley and escape.”