After a while, however, things began to assume a strangely familiar look. "I've never been west of the Gap before," he muttered, "but—yonder looks like Comanche Mound. And, sure as shootin', here's Matchett's Pond! Ah!" he added, after profound reflection, "I am east of the Gap now. I must have been all this time, somehow, on the other side."
His conjecture was correct. Stumbling unwittingly through the narrow Gap in the darkness of the first night, and deceived by the prairie and woodland beyond, he had there continued the incessant and bewildered round into which he had fallen when he had first lost his bearings.
"It's all clear as daylight now," he cried, joyously. "You've got a heap more sense than I have, Lady! Couldn't fool you with roughs and prairies! And now I think I will stretch my legs a little, and rest you, my beauty."
He slid to the ground and limped along beside his four-footed friend, leaning against her, and chattering boyishly as he went.
"Tain't more'n ten miles to Bishop's store now. And mother'll be on the porch, late as it is, looking out for me. Poor mother, I know she's been fretting! And she'll have the coffee-pot on the coals. And father'll be pretending to scold. But, shucks! he won't mean a word of it. Seems like"—a lump arose in the boy's throat—"seems like I never understood father before, nor loved mother half enough!... Where have you been all this time, anyhow, Lady? Why, what a scratch you've got on your side! Run against a mesquit thorn, eh? It's all bloody. I'll doctor it the minute we get home. Hello!—"
One of his legs seemed all at once to have grown shorter than the other, a loud report rang in his ears, a thrill of intense agony racked his whole body, and he dropped fainting to the ground. He came to himself a moment later to find the blood pouring from a wound in his left shoulder, and when he attempted to rise and draw his leg from the deep rabbit-hole into which he had stumbled a sharp pain warned him that both knee and ankle were sprained or broken. He ceased his efforts and fell back, staring helplessly up at the sky.
The mustang, who had darted away at the discharge of the rifle, had returned, and was standing beside him.
"Don't go, Lady," he implored, catching at her mane. "I've shot myself, I reckon. I can't move my leg. Don't, don't leave me, Lady."
The mare thrust her nose reassuringly against his face.