She whispered this to sleepless Kate on
her return to the house, for Angela, exhausted with grief and long
suspense, had fallen, apparently, into deep and dreamless slumber.
But the end of that eventful night was not yet. Arnold and his
sextette slipped away soon after four o'clock, and about 4.50 there
came a banging at the major's door. It was the telegraph operator. The
wire was patched at last, and the first message was to the effect that
the guard had been fired on in Cherry Creek canon--that Private
Forrest was sorely wounded and lying at Dick's deserted ranch, with
two of their number to care for him. Could they possibly send a
surgeon at once?
There was no one to go but Graham. His patients at the post were doing
fairly well, but there wasn't a horse for him to ride. "No matter,"
said he, "I'll borrow Punch. He's needing exercise these days." So
Punch was ordered man-saddled and brought forthwith. The orderly came
back in ten minutes. "Punch aint there, sir," said he. "He's been gone
over half an hour."
"Gone? Gone where? Gone how?" asked Graham in amaze.
"Gone with Miss Angela, sir. She saddled him herself and rode away not
twenty minutes after Arnold's party left. The sentries say she
followed up the Beaver."
CHAPTER XIX
BESIEGED
Deep down in a ragged cleft of the desert, with shelving rock and
giant bowlder on every side, without a sign of leaf, or sprig of
grass, or tendril of tiny creeping plant, a little party of haggard,
hunted men lay in hiding and in the silence of exhaustion and despond,
awaiting the inevitable.
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