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Updated: June 19, 2025
"Ken," he called, with both gladness and doubt in his voice, "you look pretty good but that blood.... Tell me, quick!" "It's nothing, Dick, only a little cut. The bullet just ticked my arm." Whatever Dick's reply was it got drowned in Herky-Jerky's long explosion of strange language. Herky was plainly glad I had not been badly hurt.
If he ever wakes up right we'll have a wildcat on our hands. He'll do fer one of us yet." These men all took pleasure in saying things like this to Buell. This time Buell had no answer ready, and sat nursing his head. "Wal, I hev a little headache myself, an' the crack I got wasn't nothin' to yourn," concluded Bud. Then Bill began packing the supplies indoors, and Herky started a fire.
But evidently they thought Buell seemed on the verge of losing control of himself. He glared at Herky, and rammed his fists in his pockets and paced the long room. Presently he stepped out of the door. A rifle cracked clear and sharp, another bellowed out heavy and hollow. A bullet struck the door-post, a second hummed through the door and budded into the log wall. Buell jumped back into the room.
I had already heard mirth, anger, disgust, and fear in his outbreaks, and now relief was added. He stripped off my coat, cut off the bloody sleeve of my shirt, and washed the wound. It was painful and bled freely, but it was not much worse than cuts from spikes when playing ball. Herky bound it tightly with a strip of my shirt-sleeve, and over that my handkerchief.
"He'd hev done fer you, an' thet's no lie. You won't fergit when we're rustled down to Holston?" "I'll remember, Herky," I promised, and I meant to put in a good word for him. Because, whether or not his reasons had to do with kidnapping and ransom, he had saved me from terrible violence, perhaps death. It was decided that we would leave the prisoners in the cabin and ride down to the sawmill.
"I hain't got the least idee, Herky," shouted Bill, as cool as could be, "but I guess somewhar whar it'll be hot!" We were lost in the forest and almost surrounded by fire, if the roar was anything to tell by. We galloped on, always governed by the roar, always avoiding the slope up the mountain. If we once started up that with the fire in our rear we were doomed.
Herky hauled me out of the brush, and held me in the light. The others scrambled from under the remains of the loft, and all viewed me curiously. "Kid, you ain't hurt much?" queried Buell, with concern. I would have snapped out a reply, but I caught sight of Dick's pale face and anxious eyes.
"I've a picture of myself goin'," replied Herky, without moving. "Whar's the water? Get some water, Greaser," chimed in Bill. From the way they worked over Buell, I concluded he had been pretty badly stunned. But he came to presently. "What struck me?" he asked. "Oh, nothin'," replied Bud, derisively. "The loft up thar's full of air, an' it blowed on you, thet's all."
When I awoke the sun was gleaming dimly through thin films of smoke. I was lying in a pleasant little ravine with stunted pines fringing its slopes. The brook bowled merrily over stones. Bud snored in the shade of a big boulder. Herky whistled as he broke dead branches into fagots for a campfire. Bill was nowhere in sight. I saw several of the horses browsing along the edge of the water.
"Bud, you and Bill hold the horses here!" I shouted, intensely excited. "Herky, have you matches?" "Nary a match." "Hyar's a box," said Bill, tossing it. "Come on, Herky! You run up the brook. Light a match, and drop it every hundred feet. Be sure it catches. Lucky there's little wind down here. Go as far as you can. I'll run down!" We splashed out of the brook and leaped up the bank.
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