blurred, dingy, wet pulp.

Vengeance had come and gone. The man and the horse were motionless.
Around them, silence seemed to gather like a witness.

"If you are dead," said the Virginian, "I am glad of it." He stood
looking down at Balaam and Pedro, prone in the middle of the open
tableland. Then he saw Balaam looking at him. It was the quiet stare of
sight without thought or feeling, the mere visual sense alone, almost
frightful in its separation from any self. But as he watched those
eyes, the self came back into them. "I have not killed you," said the
Virginian. "Well, I ain't goin' to do any more to yu'--if that's a
satisfaction to know."

Then he began to attend to Balaam with impersonal skill, like some one
hired for the purpose. "He ain't hurt bad," he asserted aloud, as if
the man were some nameless patient; and then to Balaam he remarked, "I
reckon it might have put a less tough man than you out of business for
quite a while. I'm goin' to get some water now." When he returned with
the water, Balsam was sitting up, looking about him. He had not yet
spoken, nor did he now speak. The sunlight flashed on the six-shooter
where it lay, and the Virginian secured it. "She ain't so pretty as she
was," he remarked, as he examined the weapon. "But she'll go right handy
yet."

Strength was in a measure returning to Pedro. He was a young horse,
and the exhaustion neither of anguish nor of over-riding was enough
to affect him long or seriously. He got himself on his feet and walked
waveringly over to the old mare, and stood by her for comfort. The
cow-puncher came up to him, and Pedro, after starting back slightly,
seemed to comprehend that he was in friendly hands. It was plain that he
would soon be able to travel slowly if no weight was on him, and that he
would be a very good horse again. Whether they abandoned the runaways or
not, there was no staying here for night to overtake them without food
or water. The day was still high, and what its next few hours had in
store the Virginian could not say, and he left them to take care of
themselves, determining meanwhile that he would take command of the
minutes and maintain the position he had assumed both as to Balaam and
Pedro. He took Pedro's saddle off, threw the mare's pack to the ground,
put Balaam's saddle on her, and on that stowed or tied her original
pack, which he could do, since it was so light. Then he went to Balaam,
who was sitting up.

"I reckon you can t