Lord Grizzly, Second Edition by Frederick Manfred Page A

“Hugh!”
    Hugh volved past, grizzly face and nose and stroking arms awash in the chasing tan surface.
    Quickly Augie caught hold of a punting pole and, leaning, reached out as far as he could.
    Hugh lunged for the end of the pole; missed it; went under. And going under, felt his rifle slide down his back and into the legging of his one good leg, making both his legs useless.
    Hugh gave it one more try. He dug his way to the surface. He clubbed the water with powerful arms. Arrows and balls pelted the water all around him; hit the gray sides of the keelboat above him.
    Augie ran down the polers’ walk and, once again, from the extreme stern of the punting pole as far as he could.
    This time Hugh made it. He managed to get a good grip on the end of it and hung on with a bulldog’s grimness. Slowly Augie pulled him over to the rungs and then helped him climb up, helped him up over the top into the hold.
    â€œThankee, lad,” Hugh grunted, as he slid down under the polers’ walk and out of reach of arrow and shot, “thankee, lad. I was almost fishmeat that time, I was. Ye saved me me life. And at a risk too.”
    â€œâ€˜Twas nothin’, Hugh.”
    â€œAe, but this old hoss wouldn’t have made it to the other boat. Too old. I won’t forget, lad.”
    â€œYe all right, Hugh?”
    â€œTolerable. Just ham-shot a little. By a small ball.” Hugh ganted for breath. “The worst was that swim. For an old man it was some, it was.”
    â€œYe’d best rest now, Hugh.”
    Hugh nodded. His tangled gray hair and matted gray beard dripped water. Drops ran down his neck. His floppy buckskins were sopping wet and as viscous as chewed-over fatback. “I’ll rest me a little after we’ve dug out the ball, lad.” Hugh breathed. “Lad, sharpen up me butcher knife on the hone, will you, and we’ll get at it presently.” Gritting his teeth against pain and a faint coming on, Hugh slid down until his head rested on a smelly bundle of beaver plew.
    â€œI’d best get the doc, Hugh,” Augie said. “I wouldn’t trust myself with a butcher knife.”
    â€œWho said ye was to do it? It’s me that will, lad. As soon as I’ve had me that rest.”
    â€œI’d best get the doc, old hoss,” Augie said.
    â€œAw, let the doc help them that needs it. I ain’t hit bad.”
    Hugh looked around after a while. To either side of him, propped up against barrels of gunpowder and stores of food and supplies, sat others who’d been wounded. They were bleeding; they were soaked through and through with dirty Missouri water; and they looked out at the world with bleary fatigue-gray eyes. There was mountain man David McClane, and Willis the Nigger, and pork-eater August Dufrain, and ned-hearted Joseph Monso. They lay staring vacantly at the golden morning sky arching high above them.
    Hugh asked suddenly, “Where’s Johnnie?”
    â€œJohnnie who?”
    â€œJohnnie Gardner.”
    â€œHe’s dead,” Augie said. “Prayin’ Diah Smith prayed powerful over him, but the Lord took him just the same.”
    â€œI feel mighty queersome,” Hugh murmured. “Is my topknot gone, lad?” And then Hugh slipped away into a faint.
    The anchor had been cut and the keelboat
Rocky Mountains
was drifting downstream past the point of the island, with the
Yellowstone Packet
just ahead. General Ashley had ordered a regrouping of forces below the mouth of the Grand River.
    Old Hugh sat amidships, ball removed and bandaged leg propped up on a pack of prime beaver. A hot sun shone on him. In places his buckskins already felt dry enough to be shingles, had shrunk enough to pinch him over the back and along the thigh of his good leg.
    Slow talk rose and fell around him. One of the nearby wounded groaned and moved a trifle and groaned some more.
    Presently Hugh heard General Ashley talking to Rose the halfbreed