"Done for? Oh, you're not--not going to die! Are you hurt? Why didn't you tell me?" Whereupon she dropped to her knees at his side, her dark eyes searching his intently, despair in them until the winning smile struggled back into his. The captives chuckled audibly. "What can I--what shall I do? Oh, why don't those men come! It must be noon or--"
"It's barely six A.M., Miss Gray. Don't worry. I'm all right. A cut in my leg; the old woman plugged me. I can't walk, you know--but--"
"And you carried me out here and did all that and never said a word about--oh, how good and brave and noble you are!"
When Anderson Crow and half of Tinkletown, routed out _en masse_ by Bud, appeared on the scene an hour or two later, they found Wicker Bonner stretched out on a mattress, his head in Rosalie's lap. The young woman held his revolver in her hand, and there was a look in her face which said that she would shoot any one who came to molest her charge. Two helpless desperadoes lay cursing in the corner of the tent.
Anderson Crow, after an hour of deliberation and explanation, fell upon the bound and helpless bandits and bravely carted the whole lot to the town "calaboose." Wicker Bonner and his nurse were taken into town, and the news of the rescue went flying over the county, and eventually to the four corners of the land, for Congressman Bonner's nephew was a person of prominence.
Bonner, as he passed up the main street in Peabody's sleigh on the way to Anderson Crow's home, was the centre of attraction. He was the hero of the hour, for was not Rosalie Gray herself, pale and ill with torture, his most devoted slave? What else could Tinkletown do but pay homage when it saw Bonner's head against her shoulder and Anderson Crow shouting approval from the bob-sled that carried the kidnapers. The four bandits, two of them much the worse for the night's contact with Wicker Bonner, were bundled into the lock-up, a sadly morose gang of ghosts.
"I owe you a thousand dollars," said Anderson to Bonner as they drew up in front of the marshal's home. All Tinkletown was there to see how Mrs. Crow and the family would act when Rosalie was restored to them. The yard was full of gaping villagers, and there was a diffident cheer when Mrs. Crow rushed forth and fairly dragged Rosalie from the sleigh. "Blootch" Peabody gallantly interposed and undertook to hand the girl forth with the grace of a Chesterfield. But Mrs. Crow had her way.