on his face in the warm sand.

He waited there a long time for the gathering of strength enough to
carry him on his quest of a friendly hand. Only the savage determination
to strike his enemies down, head by head, kept him from perishing as he
lay there sore and bruised, chilled to the marrow in his welling agony
even that hot summer night.

Dawn was breaking when he at last found strength to mount the low bank
through the encumbering brush and vines. His arms were senseless below
the elbows, swollen almost to bursting of veins and skin by the gorged
blood. There was no choice in directions, only to avoid the town. He
faced up the river and trudged on, the cottonwood leaves beginning their
everlasting symphony, that is like the murmur of rain, as the wakening
wind moved them overhead.

Morgan stumbled over tin cans at the edge of the tall grass when the
rising sun was shining across his unprotected eyes. He stood for a
little while, wondering at first sight if this were only another mirage
of the plagued imagination, such as had risen like ephemera while he lay
on the sand bar at the river's edge. He stood with weak legs braced wide
apart to fix his reeling senses on the sight--the amazing, comforting
sight, of a field of growing corn. Only a little field, more properly a
patch, but it was tall and green, in full tassel, the delicate sweet of
its blossoms strong on the dew-damp morning.

Beyond the field he could see the roof of a sod house, and a little of
the brown wall that rose not much higher than the corn. Grass had grown
on the roof, for it was made of strips of sod, also, and turned sere and
brown in the sun. A wire fence stood a prickly barrier between roaming
cattle and this little field of succulent fodder. Morgan directed his
course to skirt the field, and came at last to the cabin door.

In front of the house there was no fence, but a dooryard that seemed to
embrace the rest of the earth. Around the door the ground was trampled
and bare; in front of the house three horses stood, saddled and waiting,
bridle reins on the ground. It looked like a cow camp to Morgan; it
seemed as if he had come back home. A dog rose slowly from where it lay
across the door, bristles rising, foot lifted as if the creature paused
between flight and attack, setting up such an alarm that the horses
bolted a little way and stood wondering.

A woman came to the door, lifted her hands in silent astonishment,
leaning a little to