As he rose from his cramped crouching position, Charley got his first glance of the interior of the dugout and his face grew dark with anger towards those who had brought this thing to pass.
Prone on his face in the bottom lay a magnificent specimen of savage manhood. His height, when standing, could not have been less than six feet three. His shoulders were broad and clothed with great, powerful muscles. His body sloped away gracefully to a slim waist and straight, muscular limbs—the ideal body, striven for by all athletes. His dress was that usual to Seminoles on a hunt—a long calico shirt belted in at the waist, limbs bare, moccasins of soft tanned deer-skin, and a head-dress made of many tightly-wound crimson handkerchiefs bound together by a broad, thin band of polished silver. In the turban, now dyed a richer hue from the blood flowing from the warrior's shoulder, was stuck a large eagle feather, the insignia of a chief. At his feet, where he had crumpled down under the enemy's bullets, lay the Indian lad in a huddled heap. It did not need the tiny eagle feather in the diminutive turban to convince Charley's observant eye that it was a case of father and son, a chief and son of a chief.
All that we have taken so long to describe, Charley had taken in at one swift glance.
"Both are still living," he declared. "Run to the lean-to, Walt, and get a blanket. We will have to drag that big one up to the camp. It will be pretty rough, but it's our only way. We cannot carry him."
In a minute Walter was back with a thick, strong horse-blanket, which he spread out on the turf close to the water.
It took every ounce of strength the two lads possessed to lift the heavy body from the dugout to the blanket, then each taking a forward end of the blanket, they drew it gently after them sled-wise up to the lean-to, avoiding rough places as much as possible. There, they had to exert themselves to the limit of their strength to lift their burden from the blanket to one of the couches.
Their second trip was easier. The Indian lad, though showing promise of great future strength, was still only a stripling, and they bore his limp body in their arms without difficulty.