“I’ve got half a notion that Andy was telling the truth, after all,” he remarked to Weary when they were well away from camp. “It’s worth taking a chance on, anyhow—and when he comes back things will be smooth again.”
When Saturday came and brought no Andy to camp, the Happy Family began to speculate upon his absence. When Sunday’s circle took them within twelve or fifteen miles of the camp in the Bad-lands, Pink suddenly proposed that they ride down there and see what was going on. “He won’t be looking for us,” he explained, to hide a secret uneasiness. “And if he’s there we can find out what the josh is. If he ain’t, we’ll have it on him good and strong.”
“I betche Andy just wanted a lay-off, and took that way uh getting it,” declared Happy Jack pessimistically. “I betche he’s in town right now, tearing things wide open and tickled to think he don’t have to ride in this hot sun. Yuh can’t never tell what Andy’s got cached up his sleeve.”
“Chip thinks he was talking on the level,” Weary mused. “Maybe he was; as Happy says, yuh can’t tell.”
As always before, this brought the Happy Family to argument which lasted till they neared the deep, lonely coulee where, according to Andy, “friend Dan” had wintered with the shifty-eyed old man.
“Now, how the mischief do we get down?” questioned Jack Bates complainingly. “This is bound to be the right place—there’s the cabin over there against the cottonwoods.”
“Aw, come on back,” urged Happy Jack, viewing the steep bluff with disfavor. “Chances is, Andy’s in town right now. He ain’t down—”
“There’s old Buck, over there by the creek,” Pink announced. “I’d know him far as I could see him. Let’s ride around that way. There’s sure to be a trail down.” He started off, and they followed him dispiritedly, for the heat was something to remember afterwards with a shudder.
“Here’s the place,” Pink called back to them, after some minutes of riding. “Andy’s horse is down there, too, but I don’t see Andy—”
“Chances is—” began Happy Jack, but found no one listening.
It would be impossible to ride down, so they dismounted and prepared for the scramble. They could see Buck, packed as if for the homeward trail, and they could see Andy’s horse, saddled and feeding with reins dragging. He looked up at them and whinnied, and the sound but accentuated the loneliness of the place. Buck, too, saw them and came toward them, whinnying wistfully; but, though they strained eyes in every direction, they could see nothing of the man they sought.
It was significant of their apprehension that not even Happy Jack made open comment upon the strangeness of it. Instead, they dug bootheels deep where the slope was loose gravel, and watched that their horses did not slide down upon them; climbed over rocks where the way was barred, and prayed that horse and man might not break a leg. They had been over rough spots, and had climbed in and out of deep coulees, but never had they travelled a rougher trail than that.
“My God! boys, look down there!” Pink cried, when yet fifty perpendicular feet lay between them and the level below.
They looked, and drew breath sharply. Huddled at the very foot of the last and worst slope lay Andy, and they needed no words to explain what had happened. It was evident that he had started to climb the bluff and had slipped and fallen to the bottom, And from the way he was lying—The Happy Family shut out the horror of the thought and hurried recklessly to the place.
It was Pink who, with a last slide and a stumbling recovery at the bottom, reached him first. It was Jack Bates who came a close second and helped to turn him—for he had fallen partly on his face. From the way one arm was crumpled back under him, they knew it to be broken. Further than that they could only guess and hope. While they were feeling for heart-beats, the others came down and crowded close. Pink looked up at them strainedly.
“Oh, for God’s sake, some of yuh get water,” he cried sharply. “What good do yuh think you’re doing, just standing around?”
“We ought to be hung for letting him come down here alone,” Weary repented. “It ain’t safe for one man in this cursed country. Where’s he hurt, Cadwolloper?”
“How in hell do I know?” Anxiety ever sharpened the tongue of Pink. “If somebody’d bring some water—”
“Happy’s gone. And there ain’t a drop uh whisky in the crowd! Can’t we get him into the shade? This damned sun is enough to—”
“Look out how yuh lift him, man! You ain’t wrassling a calf, remember! You take his shoulder, Jack—easy, yuh damned, awkward—”
“Here comes Happy, with his hat full. Don’t slosh it all on at once! A little at a time’s better. Get some on his head.”
So with much incoherence and with everybody giving orders and each acting independently, they bore him tenderly into the shade of a rock and worked over him feverishly, their faces paler than his. When he opened his eyes and stared at them dully, they could have shouted for very relief. When he closed them again they bent over him solicitously and dripped more water from the hat of Happy Jack. And not one of them but remembered remorsefully the things they had said of him, not an hour before; the things they had said even when he was lying there alone and hurt—hurt unto death, for all they knew.
When he was roused enough to groan when they moved him, however gently, they began to consider the problem of getting him to camp, and they cursed the long, hot miles that lay between. They tried to question him, but if he understood what they were saying he could not reply except by moaning, which was not good to hear. All that they could gather was that when they moved his body in a certain way the pain of it was unbearable. Also, he would faint when his head was lowered, or even lifted above the level. They must guard against that if they meant to get him to camp alive.
“We’ll have to carry him up this cussed hill, and then—If he could ride at all, we might make it.”
“The chances is he’ll die on the road,” croaked Happy Jack tactlessly, and they scowled at him for voicing the fear they were trying to ignore. They had been trying not to think that he might die on the road, and they had been careful not to mention the possibility. As it was, no one answered.
How they ever got him to the top of that heartbreaking slope, not one of them ever knew. Twice he fainted outright. And Happy Jack, carefully bearing his hat full of water for just that emergency, slipped and spilled the whole of it just when they needed it most. At the last, it was as if they carried a dead man between them—Jack Bates and Cal Emmett it was who bore him up the last steep climb—and Pink and Weary, coming behind with all the horses, glanced fearfully into each other’s eyes and dared not question.
At the top they laid him down in the grass and swore at Happy Jack, because they must do something, and because they dared not face what might be before them. They avoided looking at one another while they stood helplessly beside the still figure of the man they had maligned. If he died, they would always have that bitter spot in their memory—and even with the fear of his dying they stood remorseful.
Of a sudden Andy opened his eyes and looked at them with the light of recognition, and they bent eagerly toward him. “If—yuh could—on—my horse—I—I—could ride—maybe.” Much pain it cost him, they knew by the look on his face. But he was game to the last—just as they knew he would be.
“Yuh couldn’t ride Twister, yuh know yuh couldn’t,” Pink objected gently. “But—if yuh could ride Jack’s horse—he’s dead gentle, and we’d help hold yuh on. Do you think yuh could?”
Andy moved his head uneasily. “I—I’ve got to,” he retorted weakly, and even essayed a smile to reassure them. “I—ain’t all—in yet,” he added with an evident effort, and the Happy Family gulped sympathetically, and wondered secretly if they would have such nerve under like