“You take, White Father Hinch,” he ordered. “Pronto! Savvy? You got meat and oats?”
The Indian shook his head, pointing to the small bag of meal at his loin cloth. Sid cut him a flank from the buck, gave him a bag of oats and a handful of cartridges for a present, and sent him on his way. Then he saddled Pinto and rode toward the gulch, leaving Scotty and Big John still snoring in camp.
He rode along the flanks of Buckskin, trying hard to remember the lay of the ravines, even though he had passed through them twice before. It was not easy. Several times he was sure he was lost, but each time some familiar tree or rock formation reassured him and he rode on. When he finally reached their ravine he was not sure of it, even then. Scraggly pinyons covered its rocky slopes, but there were dozens of others just like it, and there was absolutely nothing living to be seen in it. But, as for men or animals, what are they in Nature’s vast landscapes, where half a mile of verdure is tilted up as a mere wrinkle in one of her mountains! Buckskin was twenty miles long, a straight knife-edge as seen from across the canyon, cloud-covered, dim, and distant, as inaccessible to the traveling world as the North Pole, and it had hundreds of ravines like this.
Sid halted his pony, looking down into the ravine with half a mind to push on further. Then a sort of break in the pinyons attracted his eye. That was not natural; something lay there! He rode over to it, and long before he reached it a great brown mass of fur appeared dimly, huddled up in a mass of tough, craggy trees that had been broken off like jackstraws. He dismounted and walked over to it with rifle at ready, for by no urging would Pinto come a step nearer. The brown mass did not move as he climbed through the crags toward it.
A shiver went through Sid. Why, this was the place the Colonel had chosen for his hide! It was a hundred yards from where the buck lay, down hill, there, on the ravine flank! Then he got sight of the animal’s head. Big as a brown bowlder it was, with incurved snout-bone doubled up on a great beard of furry whiskers. The great round ears were erect, but the eyes were closed and a streak of blood ran from under long, glistening tushes still bared in the snarl of death. It was the Yellow Grizzly, Sid realized—but where was his father! He stood looking over the carcass and peering about through the pinyons, fearfully. There were cakes of matted blood all over the long hair on the bear’s chest, and great cavities where the bullets had come out on the other side, and there in that side was a knife, still buried to the hilt—Niltci’s!
Sid looked around, bewildered. The pines were all torn and mangled about him. There had been a terrific fight, here!
Then a feebly cry electrified him. “Water!” it called, more a moan than an articulate voice.
Sid rushed over. Down in a pit of bowlders he saw the brown khaki-clad back of a man, lying face downward doubled up on his side. Those broad shoulders could be none other than his father’s, the boy realized, as he scrambled toward the spot with sobs of anguish welling up in him.
Gently he turned him over, and sat him up in a more comfortable position. Down the Colonel’s side, from his shoulder to knee, he saw a frightful row of red marks, as if some set of steel cultivator hooks had gouged its way there. The rocks around were all red, and the Colonel’s clothing was soaked and dripping.
But the old warrior’s eyes opened and looked at him steadfastly as Sid slipped his arm tenderly behind his head, calling to him softly, the tears raining down his cheeks. He motioned for water. Sid nodded and raced to where he had tied Pinto. Ripping off the canteen from the saddle hook, he dashed back and held its life-giving stream to Colonel Colvin’s lips. Then he set about bandaging his claw wounds.