Part 37 (1/2)

”Yes, yes,” they said, soothing gruffly. ”Sh.o.r.e he did; sh.o.r.e you didn't.

It's all right. Come along, come along.”

Then----

”Pick him up. He's bad hurt, himself. See that blood? No, 'tain't his arm, is it? He's bleedin' internal. Whar's the hole? Wait! He's busted something.”

They would have carried me.

”No,” I cried, while their bearded faces swam. ”He said ”Nuf'--he shot me afterward. Not bad, is it? I can walk.”

”Not bad. Creased you in the arm, if that's all. What you spittin' blood for?”

As they hustled me onward I wiped my swollen lips; the back of my hand seemed to be covered with thin blood.

”Where he struck me, once,” I wheezed.

”Yes, mebbe so. But come along, come along. We'll tend to you.”

The world had grown curiously darkened, so that we moved as through an obscuring veil; and I dumbly wondered whether this was night (had it been morning or evening when I started for the pond?) or whether I was dying myself. I peered and again made out the sober, stern faces hedging me, but they gave me no answer to my mutely anxious query. Across a great distance we stumbled by the wagons (the same wagons of a time agone), and halted at a fire.

”Set down. Fetch a blanket, somebody. Whar's the water? Set down till we look you over.”

I let them sit me down.

”Wash your mouth out.”

That was done, pinkish; and a second time, clearer.

”You're all right.” Jenks apparently was ministering to me. ”Swaller this.”

The odor of whiskey fumed into my nostrils. I obediently swallowed, and gasped and choked. Jenks wiped my face with a sopping cloth. Hands were rummaging at my left arm; a bandage being wound about.

”Nothin' much,” was the report. ”Creased him, is all. Lucky he dodged. It was comin' straight for his heart.”

”He's all right,” Jenks again a.s.serted.

Under the bidding of the liquor the faintness from the exertion and reaction was leaving me. The slight hemorrhage from the strain to my weak lungs had ceased. I would live, I would live. But he--Daniel?

”Did I kill him?” I besought. ”Not that! I didn't aim--I don't know how I shot--but I had to. Didn't I?”

”You did. He'll not bother you ag'in. She's yourn.”

That hurt.

”But it wasn't about her, it wasn't over Mrs. Montoyo. He bullied me--dared me. We were man to man, boys. He made me fight him.”

”Yes, sh.o.r.e,” they agreed--and they were not believing. They still linked me with a woman, whereas she had figured only as a transient occasion.

Then she herself, My Lady, appeared, running in breathless and appealing.