with Bob in his arms, half a dozen men, including Grafton and his own
Lieutenant, were retreating back into cover--all under the same impulse
and with the same motive having started for him, too. Behind a tree,
Crittenden laid Bob down, still turning his head from side to side
helplessly. There was a trail of blood across his temple, and, wiping it
away, he saw that the bullet had merely scraped along the skull without
penetrating it. In a moment, Bob groaned, opened his eyes, sat up,
looked around with rolling eyes, grunted once or twice, straightened
out, and reached for his gun, shaking his head.

"Gimme drink, Ole Cap'n, please, suh."

Crittenden handed him his canteen, and Bob drank and rose unsteadily to
his feet.

"Dat ain't nuttin'," he said, contemptuously, feeling along the wound.
"'Tain't nigh as bad as mule kick. 'Tain't nuttin', 't all." And then he
almost fell.

"Go back, Bob."

"All right, Ole Cap'n, I reckon I'll jus' lay down heah little while,"
he said, stretching out behind the tree.

And Grafton reached over for Crittenden's hand. He was getting some new
and startling ideas about the difference in the feeling toward the negro
of the man who once owned him body and soul and of the man who freed him
body and soul. And in the next few minutes he studied Crittenden as he
had done before--taking in detail the long hair, lean face strongly
chiselled, fearless eye, modest demeanour--marking the intellectual look