"In his agony, poor creature. He was shot savagely."

"Ah! Yes. Seems rather hard on him--a horse to be shot by means of a horse."

"I don't understand you," said Chris, staring.

"No? Don't you know what some of their bows are?"

"Oh, you mean the strings. Made out of twisted gut, perhaps."

"That's quite right, my lad, but not what I meant. I meant the bows themselves."

"Some very tough wood, I suppose, like the yew with which the English used to make bows."

"Nay. Lots of them are made of horses' or buffaloes' ribs. They're handy and short and tough. You know with what a whing they can send an arrow."

"I didn't know that," said Chris thoughtfully.

"Didn't you, now?" said Griggs mockingly. "I shouldn't wonder if there are two or three more things that you haven't found out yet. But, as I was saying, you ought to have been a dead one over that job, squire.

The redskins meant you; but they got the worst of it. I say, though, I could teach you a-many things."

"Well, you have taught me many things in shooting and fishing and hunting."

"Well, yes, a few," said the American coolly; "but they're just about nothing to what you could teach me."

"I?" cried Chris, staring at him in wonder. "Why, what could I teach you that you don't know?"

"How to tumble over a cliff like that without doing yourself any worse damage than making a few scratches, tearing your jacket, and getting yourself full of dust."

They had been tramping together across the head of the valley as they talked about their experiences, with Chris keeping a keen lookout ahead for the first glimpse of his father, and giving an occasional look up towards the edge of the cliff, which he noted was wonderfully broken up into hollows and prominences, rifts and gorges that had been invisible from a distance, and all overhung by a level band of apparently impa.s.sable rock. But during the last few minutes of their chat they had been so deeply interested that neither had glanced upward to their right, and the first warning they had of danger was given in a quick sharp shout in the doctor's familiar voice.

"Ah, look out!" he cried, and followed up his words by firing; but before the bullet left his rifle Chris heard a loud whirring and saw his companion start violently before stooping down a few yards away to pick a little arrow from where it had stuck in the ground.

"That's not bad shooting," said Griggs coolly. "Hit him, doctor?"

"Yes," said the latter, hurrying up to catch Chris's hand.

"My boy! my boy!" he cried in a choking voice which prevented him from saying more.

But he seemed to give himself a wrench directly after, to speak out plainly and with decision.

"You must keep a sharper lookout, Griggs," he cried. "You forget that we are within range of their arrows."

"I shall remember in future, doctor," said the American dryly.

"Did that arrow touch you?" said the doctor anxiously.

"Went right through the leg of my boot, sir," said Griggs coolly.

"But it did not graze you? Why, man, you're bleeding fast!"

"Oh, it's nothing, sir," said the man.

"How do you know?" cried the doctor. "Here, let's get behind that stone. They can't touch us there."

Griggs walked firmly enough half the distance to the shelter sought for, but he limped the rest of the way, and was ready enough to sit down behind the rock and let the doctor go on one knee to carefully draw up the bloodstained bottom of the man's trousers just above where it was thrust into the high boot.

"Hah!" sighed the doctor. "Only a clean little cut in the flesh. I'll put a st.i.tch or two in it. Why, it's as clean as if done with a knife."

The doctor had laid his rifle ready to hand, and was busy at once opening a pocket-book containing the necessaries he required; but first of all he pulled round the bottle slung over his shoulder and carefully washed the diagonal cut.

"You don't think there's poison in it, do you, doctor?" said the American, with a look of amus.e.m.e.nt.

"Any form of dirt is poison to a wound," said the doctor, drying the place; and then, after deftly drawing the edges of the wound together, cutting some strips of plaister with the bright scissors ready, and applying them to keep all protected from the air.

"Hurt much?" he said, as he worked away, Chris watching the while as if taking a lesson.

"Well, yes, I won't say it don't, doctor; but not worse than I feel somewhere else. I say, though, hadn't we better make haste back to the fort?"

"Yes; you feel faint, don't you?"

"Horribly," said Griggs, giving Chris a comical look.

"Let's go, then. Put your foot as lightly as you can to the ground, and lean on me. We must get out of bowshot as quickly as we can."

"Tchah! Only my nonsense, doctor," said Griggs cheerily. "My faintness is the same as squire's here. We want our breakfast horribly."

"Oh," cried the doctor, smiling. "I was afraid it was from your wound.

I don't wonder that you are faint, Chris. But one moment, boy, do you think the Indians can lower themselves down over the edge of the cliff?"

"No, father; not unless they are ready to drop as I did."

"How far?"

"Can't tell," said Chris, with an involuntary shudder. "It was rather horrible, and I wonder I wasn't killed."

"And I wonder too," said the doctor solemnly. "I don't think that they will dare to descend in the daytime, for they will be afraid that we are waiting to fire at all who show; so come on. Are you sure you can walk, Griggs?"

"Walk, sir? I should like to run."

"But your leg must smart."

"Hardly smarts, sir; it's just as if somebody was playing at sewing it up with a red-hot skewer. Nice bold refreshing sort of pain.--Tchah!

That's all right."

"But where are the mules and ponies, father?" said Chris, as they hurried now in the direction of the terraced cliff on their right.

"Hobbled, and grazing at the foot of our cliff under shelter of a couple of rifles."

"But there are more Indians at the mouth of the gulch?"