a groan, and
then the strike and pound of hoofs as the horse struggled up. Apparently
he had rolled over his master.

"Help, fellars!" yelled Wilson, quick to leap down over the little bank,
and in the dim light to grasp the halter. The three men dragged the
horse out and securely tied him close to a tree. That done, they
peered down into the depression. Anson's form could just barely be
distinguished in the gloom. He lay stretched out. Another groan escaped
him.

"Shore I'm scared he's hurt," said Wilson.

"Hoss rolled right on top of him. An' thet hoss's heavy," declared Moze.

They got down and knelt beside their leader. In the darkness his face
looked dull gray. His breathing was not right.

"Snake, old man, you ain't--hurt?" asked Wilson, with a tremor in his
voice. Receiving no reply, he said to his comrades, "Lay hold an' we'll
heft him up where we can see."

The three men carefully lifted Anson up on the bank and laid him near
the fire in the light. Anson was conscious. His face was ghastly. Blood
showed on his lips.

Wilson knelt beside him. The other outlaws stood up, and with one dark
gaze at one another damned Anson's chance of life. And on the instant
rose that terrible distressing scream of acute agony--like that of a
woman being dismembered. Shady Jones whispered something to Moze. Then
they stood up, gazing down at their fallen leader.

"Tell me where you're hurt?" asked Wilson.

"He--smashed--my chest," said Anson, in a broken, strangled whisper.

Wilson's deft hands opened the outlaw's shirt and felt of his chest.

"No. Shore your breast-bone ain't smashed," replied Wilson, hopefully.
And he began to run his hand around one side of Anson's body and then
the other. Abruptly he stopped, averted his gaze, then slowly ran the
hand all along that side. Anson's ribs had been broken and crushed in
by the weight of the horse. He was bleeding at the mouth, and his slow,
painful expulsions of breath brought a bloody froth, which showed that
the broken bones had penetrated the lungs. An injury sooner or later
fatal!

"Pard, you busted a rib or two," said Wilson.

"Aw, Jim--it must be--wuss 'n thet!" he whispered. "I'm--in orful--pain.
An' I can't--git any--breath."

"Mebbe you'll be better," said Wilson, with a cheerfulness his face
belied.

Moze bent close over Anson, took a short scrutiny of that ghastly face,
at the blood-stained lips, and the lean hands plucking at nothing. Then
he jerked