"I am not afraid," he said. He thought of going past Dodd to find Dara, but perhaps Dodd had come to bring him to her. Perhaps Dodd knew where she was. He questioned the master with Dara's name.
"So did I," chorused the others."But I'm not going to leave you alone to brood," Albin said. "Because I'm your friend. And brooding isn't good for you. It's brooding that's got you into such a statewhere you worry about growing things, for God's sake, and about freedom and silly things like that." Albin grinned. "What you've got to do is stop worrying, and I know how to get you to do that, kiddo. I really do.""Now you kin clear away them dead mules and go ahead. You won't scarcely be bothered any more for awhile at least.""Well, it's in there, all the same," said Si impatiently, "and you must mind it, same's we do. Come, drop that gun, and help us take care o' these men. They ain't goin' to die. We won't let 'em. They're all right. Just faint from loss o' blood. We kin fix 'em up. Set your gun agin' that beech there, and go to the branch and git some water to wash their wounds, and we'll bring 'em around all right.""That father o' yours is certainly quite an innocent old party," Shorty answered, consolingly, "and the things he don't know about army life'd make more'n a pamphlet. But he has a way of wakin' up to the situation that is sometimes very surprisin'. I wisht I was able to go about with him, but I think he's fully able to take care o' himself around in camp. There's always somebody about who won't see an old man and a citizen imposed on. But what I'm afraid of is that he's wandered out in the country, huntin' for somethin' for us to eat, and the guerrillas've got him.""Come along, Mrs. Blagdon," she called, and with the baby still in her arms, she sped down the cinder track to the pumping station, and then along the line of freight cars until she recognized her father's face looking from the caboose, which was still beyond the bridge. She shouted joyously at him.
