For the last hour I had ridden close to Brent. I saw that it was almost up with him. He swayed in his saddle. His eye was glazed and dull. But he kept his look fixed on the little group of Laramie Barracks, and let his horse carry him.
I lifted up my heart in prayer that this noble life might not be quenched. He must not die now that he was enlarged and sanctified by truest love.
At last we struck open country. Bill Armstrong’s sorrel took a cradling lope; we rode through a camp of Sioux “tepees,” like so many great white foolscaps; we turned the angle of a great white wooden building, and halted. I sprang from Fulano, Brent quietly drooped down into my arms.
“Just in time,” said a cheerful, manly voice at my ear.
“I hope so,” said I. “Is it Captain Ruby?”
“Yes. We’ll take him into my bed. Dr. Pathie, here’s a patient for you.”
We carried Brent in. As we crossed the veranda, I saw Miss Clitheroe’s meeting with her father. He received her almost peevishly.
We laid the wounded man in Ruby’s hospital bed. Evidently a fine fellow, Ruby; and, what was to the point, fond of John Brent.
Dr. Pathie shook his head.
So surgeons are wont to do when they study sick men. It is a tacit recognition of the dark negative upon which they are to turn the glimmer of their positive,—a recognition of the mystery of being. They are to experiment upon life, and their chief facts are certain vaguish theories why some men die.