. She was
helpless. Nothing could have stopped her. Exhausted nature claimed
her--and she slept.

And Tresler was rousing. His constitution had asserted itself, and the
restorative Diane had administered was doing the rest. He moved
several times, but as yet his strength was insufficient to rouse him
to full consciousness. He lay there with his brain struggling against
his overwhelming weakness. Thought was hard at work with the mistiness
of dreaming. He was half aware that he was stretched out upon a bed,
yet it seemed to him that he was bound down with fetters of iron,
which resisted his wildest efforts to break. It seemed to him that he
was struggling fiercely, and that Jake was looking on mocking him. At
last, utterly weary and exhausted he gave up trying and called upon
Arizona. He shouted loudly, but he could not hear his own voice; he
shouted again and again, raising his screams to a fearful pitch, but
still no sound came. Then he thought that Jake went away, and he was
left utterly alone. He lay quite still waiting, and presently he
realized that he was stretched out on the prairie, staked down to the
ground by shackles securing his hands and feet; and the moon was
shining, and he could hear the distant sound of the coyotes and
prairie dogs. This brought him to a full understanding. His enemies
had done this thing so that he should be eaten alive by the starving
scavengers of the prairie. He pondered long; wondering, as the cries
of the coyotes drew nearer, how long it would be before the first of
the loathsome creatures would attack him. Now he could see their forms
in the moonlight. They came slowly, slowly. One much bigger than the
rest was leading; and as the creature drew near he saw that it had the
face of the rancher, whose blind eyes shone out like two coals of fire
in the moonlight. It reared itself on its hind legs, and to his utter
astonishment, as this man-wolf stood gazing down upon him, he saw that
it was wearing the dressing-gown in which the rancher always appeared.
It was a weird apparition, and the shackled man felt the force of
those savage, glowing eyes, gazing so cruelly into his. But there
could be no resistance, he was utterly at the creature's mercy. He saw
the gleaming teeth bared in anticipation of the meal awaiting it, but,
with wolf-like cunning, it dissembled. It moved around, gazing in
every direction to see that the coast was clear, it paused and stood
listening; then it came on.