Dick in the Desert. Otis James
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can't, Dick dear. I might be braver under other circumstances, but now the thought of your leaving me is more than I can bear."
"I won't go so far but that I can see the wagon," Dick said, kissing his mother and little Margie much as though bidding them good-by; and a few moments later the report of his rifle almost startled the occupants of the wagon.
During the next hour Dick discharged his weapon at least twelve times, but there was no reply of whatsoever nature.
If his father was alive and within hearing, he was too badly disabled to give token of his whereabouts.
The supply of cartridges was not so large that very many could be used without making a serious inroad upon the store; and realizing the uselessness of further efforts in this direction, Dick went back to the wagon.
Margie had fallen asleep, her head pillowed in her mother's lap; and Mrs. Stevens, unwilling to disturb the child, was taking such rest as was possible while she leaned against the canvas covering of the wagon.
Dick seated himself beside her. It was not necessary he should speak of his failure, for she knew that already.
He had thought it his duty to join her for a few moments, and then go outside again to act the part of sentinel, although such labor could be of little avail; but before he had been nestling by her side five minutes his eyes were closed in slumber; and the mother, her mind reaching out to the absent father, spent the hours of the night in wakefulness, watching over her children.
The sun had risen before Dick's eyes were opened; and springing to his feet quickly, ashamed of having slept while his mother kept guard, he said, —
"I didn't mean to hang on here like a baby while you were awake, mother, but my eyes shut before I knew it."
"It is well you rested, my son. Nothing could have been done had you remained awake."
"Perhaps not; but I should have felt better, because if anything has happened to father, though I don't say it can be possible, I'm the one who must take care of you and Margie."
Mrs. Stevens kissed the boy, not daring to trust herself to speak; and he hurried out, for there was before him a full day's work, if he would do that which he had decided upon in his mind the evening previous.
There was no reasonable hope any one would come that way for many days – perhaps months.
They were alone, and whatever was done must be accomplished by this thirteen-year-old boy.
"I'm going after something for breakfast, mother, and then count on trying to follow father's trail," Dick said, after looking around in every direction, even though he knew there was no possibility of seeing any human being.
"There is no reason why you should spend the time in trying to get food for us, Dick dear. Margie and I can get on very well without breakfast, and you will have the more time to hunt for your father; but remember, my boy, that you are the only one we can depend upon now, and without you we might remain here until we starved."
"I'll take good care not to go so far from the wagon but that I can find my way back; for surely I'll be able to follow on my own trail, if there's no other. Hadn't I better do a little hunting first?"
"Not unless you are very, very hungry, Dick. Food would choke me just now, and there is enough of the bread we baked yesterday morning to give you and Margie an apology for a breakfast."
"I can get along without; you shall eat my share. Now, don't worry if I'm not back until near sunset. The horses are close at hand, and you may be certain they won't stray while the feed is plentiful. Stay in the wagon, even though there is nothing to harm you if you walk around. We must be careful that no more trouble comes upon us; so keep under cover, mother dear, and I'll be here again before night comes."
Dick was not as confident he could follow his father's trail as he would have it appear to his mother; but he decided upon the direction in which he would search, and set bravely out heading due west, knowing he could hold such a course by aid of the sun's position, as his father had often explained to him.
Dick was hungry, but scorned to let his mother know it, and tried to dull the edge of his appetite by chewing twigs and blades of grass.
After walking rapidly ten minutes, more careful as to direction than he ever had been, because of the responsibility that rested upon him, he stopped and shouted his father's name; then listened, hoping to hear a reply.
Save for the hum of insect life, no sound came to his anxious ears.
Once more he pressed forward, and again shouted, but without avail.
He continued on until, seeing the trail made by the wagon when they had come in from the stream, he knew he was very near to the border of the valley.
Surely his father would not have gone outside, because he had said before they arrived that only in the Buffalo Meadows were they likely to find game.
Then Dick turned, pushing on in a northerly direction at right angles with the course he had just been pursuing, and halting at five-minute intervals to shout.
His anxiety and hunger increased equally as the day grew older. Try as he might, he could not keep the tears from over-running his eyelids.
The sun was sinking toward the west before he heard aught of human voice save his own; and then a cry of joy and relief burst from his lips as he heard faintly in the distance his own name spoken.
"I'm coming! I'm coming!" he cried at the full strength of his lungs, as he dashed forward, exultant in the thought that his father was alive, for he had begun to believe that he would never see him again in this world.
Mr. Stevens continued to call out now and then to guide the boy on the way, and as he drew nearer Dick understood from the quavering tones that his father was in agony.
"I'm coming, daddy! I'm coming!" he shouted yet louder, as if believing it was necessary to animate the sufferer, for he now knew that some painful accident had befallen his father; and when he finally ended the search his heart literally ceased beating because of his terror and dismay.
Dick believed he had anticipated the worst, but yet was unprepared for that which he saw.
Lying amid the blood-stained sage-grass, his shirt stripped into bandages to tie up a grievously injured limb, lay "Roving Dick," his face pallid, his lips bloodless, and his general appearance that of one whom death has nearly overtaken.
"Daddy! daddy!" Dick cried piteously, and then he understood that consciousness had deserted the wounded man.
He had retained possession of his faculties until aid was near at hand, and then the long strain of physical and mental agony had brought about a collapse.
Dick raised his father's head tenderly, imploring him to speak – to tell him what should be done; but the injured man remained silent as if death had interposed to give him relief.
Looking about scrutinizingly, as those born and bred on the frontier learn to do early in life, Dick saw his father's rifle twenty feet or more away, and between it and him a trail of blood through the sage-brush, then a sinister, crimson blotch on the sand.
Mr. Stevens's right leg was the injured member, and it had been wrapped so tightly with the improvised bandages that the boy could form no idea as to the extent of the wound; but he knew it must indeed be serious to overcome so thoroughly one who, though indolent by nature, had undergone much more severe suffering than he could have known since the time of leaving the wagon to search for game.
It seemed to Dick as if more than ten minutes elapsed before his father spoke, and then it was to ask for water.
He might as well have begged for gold, so far as Dick's ability to gratify the desire was concerned.
"To get any, daddy, I may have to go way back to the wagon, for I haven't come upon a single watercourse since leaving camp this morning."
"Your mother and Margie?"
"I left them at the camp. How did you get here?"
"It was just before nightfall. I had been stalking an antelope; was crawling on the ground dragging my rifle,