, but as he halted,
blinking at the light, he reeled drunkenly and propped his disheveled
body against the wall. That was for a moment only and at its end he
drew himself into something nearer uprightness and swept his hand
across his brow. He had not carried the matter this far to fail at the
finish.

"Lay thet man on a bed," he panted with fierce earnestness. "Thar
hain't no time ter waste ... he's nigh death ... an' he's come hyar ter
be wedded."

Brother Fulkerson answered in a voice of bewilderment, tinged, too,
with protest.

"Thar hain't sca'cely no life in him. Hit's too late fer marryin'."

"Not yit hit hain't ... hit will be ef ye tarries!" Turner ripped out
his words with the staccato snap of rifle fire. His own feebleness
seemed to drop away like the hat he flung to one side. His eyes burned
with tawny fire and a positive fury of haste. For hours, he felt he had
been holding death in abeyance by a sheer grapple of resolution, and
now men paused to parley and make comment. An impulse of insane wrath
besieged him. He must be obeyed--and the moments were flying--the sands
running out.

"Hasten now--an' talk afterwards," he burst out.

They laid Jerry on Blossom's bed, its coverings magically smoothed into
comfort by her flying hands, and Joe Sanders once more pressed his
pocket flask to the white lips.

The girl, buoyed up, beyond her strength, by the moment's need and the
mettle of her blood, swiftly and capably eased the posture of the
wounded man, loosened his heavy boots and rushed from the room to
prepare fresh bandages. The stunning impact of despair would come
later. Now every fighting chance must be preserved to him.

While she was still out of the room, Henderson's eyes opened in a
fluttering and precarious consciousness, to find other eyes fixed on
them with flaming intensity.

The basilisk gaze was fabulously reputed to bring death, but Turner
Stacy was reversing its hypnotism to compel life.

"Where--am I?" whispered Jerry; and the answer was as peremptory as
predestination.

"Ye're at Blossom's house--ter git married--an,' by God, ye've got ter
last thet long. She's got ter believe ye come of yore own free
will--see thet she does!"

The half-insensible eyes ranged vaguely about the place. The weak
fingers plucked absently at the coverlet, and then essayed a gesture.
The promoter seemed rallying his failing faculties for a supreme effort
though his voice was hardly audible.

"But-