ack, bearing a flask, which he uncorked as he
ran. Forcing the mouth of it between Haig's lips, he let the scorching
liquor trickle down the throat until the flask was half emptied. Then
he poured some of the whisky in the palm of his hand, and rubbed it on
Haig's face and bared breast and wrists, while Farrish, in his turn,
ran to the stable and brought a lap robe, which he folded and placed
under Haig's head.

They waited helplessly, without speech. At the fence, Bill and Curley
clung to their ropes. Sunnysides, his forefeet still projecting over
the plank, and the saddle hanging lopsided from his back, had his head
drawn back so far that he could see the group in the middle of the
corral. His eyes were bloodshot, foam dripped from his mouth, the
breath came whistling through his half-shut windpipe.

But in the cottonwoods the birds sang undisturbed, and the pines far
up the hill droned their old tune unchanged. From the ranch house came
the rattle of tin pans, and the voice of the cook singing a song of
the round-up.

After a long time, Haig stirred. A moan came with the first deep
breath; his eyes opened, staring up at the two faces above him; his
lips moved, but at first no sound came from them. Pete leaned closer,
and listened.

"Did--he--get--away?" came in a whisper.

"No," answered Pete. "He caught."

A smile flickered on Haig's lips, and went out; and at the same time a
tiny trickle of blood oozed out, and ran down through the dust on the
white cheek. Pete and Farrish looked at each other; and when they
turned to Haig again, his eyes were closed, and the pallor of his face
had deepened to a bluish, ashen hue.

Pete bent quickly to put his ear again to Haig's breast.

CHAPTER XIII

HILLYER'S DILEMMA

Hillyer's loyal heart was near to bursting with joy. In all the days
of his eager courtship Marion had never seemed so close to him, so
fairly within his grasp, as now. She had welcomed him with totally
unexpected warmth, considering the many times she had rejected him,
and considering, too, the letter he had received from her on her
departure. Absence, he thought, had advanced his cause for him. A
dozen times he was on the point of boldly violating the six months'
embargo she had placed upon his pleadings; but as often as the fervent
words rose to his lips fear froze them there, and he was silent.

As for Marion, she was for the moment absorbed in a little plan that
was not for Robert's know