Amid the terrible fire that stopped them, Ned saw Ferguson's musket fall from his hand, and his friend's right arm hang useless. Still the Methodist kept his place till they all turned. He was nearly fainting from loss of blood when they re-crossed the Chippewa, and Ned was able to bandage his arm roughly with a silk handkerchief. The bone was not broken, but badly grazed by a ball that had passed through it just below the elbow, and it held possibilities of danger if not dressed properly by a surgeon. But no surgeon had come with the army, which was now in all the confusion of breaking camp. Tweedsdale's reckless, foolish charge had cost five hundred out of the twelve who made it, and Riall was afraid of the Americans attacking his sorely diminished force. They did not, however, for they had no idea of the smallness of his numbers, nor the extent of his loss. The British were now in hurried retreat, to the heights of Queenston, dragging their cannon, and with their wounded in wagons. It was an excessively hot day. In the excitement of the fighting, and the hurry of starting off, no one had time to think of thirst, but now as they marched along, within sight and sound of an inland ocean of fresh water roaring through the upper rapids, they, and especially the wounded, suffered frightfully for water. And because just above the rapids the enemy's gun boats were watching, the men were ordered not to leave their ranks in the shelter of the woods. "A curse on their orders," gasped a soldier by Ned, whose face was as red as his coat. "I'm a going to have a drink if I die for it." He made a dash for the river, a stone's throw. An officer called to him angrily to come back instantly, but crazed with thirst, he only yelled out an oath, knelt down to drink at the water's edge--and the next moment was downed by an American bullet. No one else tried to reach the river, though they stared at the water with tortured eyes, as they trudged along in the heat. Many of the wounded were raving in delirium. Ferguson, too weak to walk, was suffering torments jolted along in the rough wagon. "Water," he panted at last, half unconscious, "A mouthful of water!" Percy, whose injured shoulder did not prevent him from riding on his horse, came to the side of the wagon, as he heard him. "Take a little rum from my flask," he urged, offering it, and the Methodist took it--the only time in his military life when he tasted liquor. At midnight the sullen army reached St. Davids. Percy took the exhausted Ferguson to his wife, to stay, while he rode on to the hospital at Fort George. The army passed St. Davids, and entrenched itself at Queenston, where it waited, on very short rations, and wondering why the enemy did not come on.