Page:Bacheller--D'ri and I.djvu/109

D'RI AND I treason to one's self. Add to it a saddle wet with your own blood, then you have something to give you a turn of the stomach thinking of it.

When I was near tumbling with a kind of rib-ache and could hear no pursuer, I pulled up. There was silence about me, save the sound of a light breeze in the tree-tops. I rolled off my horse, and hooked my elbow in the reins, and lay on my belly, grunting with pain. I felt better, having got my breath, and a rod of beech to bite upon—a good thing if one has been badly stung and has a journey to make. In five minutes I was up and off at a slow jog, for I knew I was near safety.

I thought much of poor D'ri and how he might be faring. The last I had seen of him, he was making good use of pistol and legs, running from tree to tree. He was a dead shot, little given to wasting lead. The drums were what worried me, for they indicated a big camp, and unless he got to the stirrups in short order, he must have been taken by overwhelming odds. It was near sundown when I came to a brook and falls I could not remember passing. I