In a dazed kind of way, and with growing unsteadiness, Orlando walked
towards the camp-fire. He was leaning against his horse, and opening his
coat and waistcoat to find the wound in his side and staunch it with the
kerchief from his neck, when Mazarine came up.
"What's that on your coat and breeches? Say, you're all bloody!"
exclaimed Mazarine. "Why, they shot you!"
"Yes, they got me," was Orlando's husky reply, and he gave a funny little
laugh. Giggling, people had called it.
"How are we going to get you home?" Mazarine asked. "You can't ride."
At that moment there was the rumbling jolt of a wagon. It was the
pioneer-emigrant returning from Askatoon to his camp.
A few minutes later Orlando was lying on some bags in the emigrant's
wagon, while Mazarine rode beside it. "It's only a few hundred yards to
the house," said the emigrant sympathetically, as he looked down at the
now unconscious figure in the wagon.
"It's four miles to his house," said Mazarine. "Well, I'm not taking him
four miles to his house or any house," said the emigrant. "My horse has
had enough to-day, and the sooner the lad's attended to, the better. He's
going to the nearest house, and that's Tralee, as they call it, just
here."
"That's my house," gruffly replied the old man. "Well, that's where you
want him to go, ain't it?" asked the pioneer sharply. He could not
understand the owner of Tralee.
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