ar nest of 'em! That's your way round!" She
pointed to the right, and again began beating the underbrush with her
wand. The men had, meantime, huddled together in consultation. It was
evident that the story of Peggy and her influence on rattlesnakes was
well known, and, in all probability, exaggerated. After a pause, the
whole party filed off to the right, making a long circuit of the unseen
stockade, and were presently lost in the distance. Peggy ran back to the
fugitive. The fire of savagery and desperation in his eyes had gone out,
but had been succeeded by a glazing film of faintness.

"Can you--get me--some water?" he whispered.

The stockade was near a spring,--a necessity for the menagerie. Peggy
brought him water in a dipper. She sighed a little; her "butcher
bird"--now lost forever--had been the last to drink from it!

The water seemed to revive him. "The rattlesnakes scared the cowards,"
he said, with an attempt to smile. "Were there many rattlers?"

"There wasn't ANY," said Peggy, a little spitefully, "'cept YOU--a
two-legged rattler!"

The rascal grinned at the compliment.

"ONE-legged, you mean," he said, indicating his helpless limb.

Peggy's heart relented slightly. "Wot you goin' to do now?" she said.
"You can't stay on THERE, you know. It b'longs to ME!" She was generous,
but practical.

"Were those things I fired out yours?"

"Yes."

"Mighty rough of me."

Peggy was slightly softened. "Kin you walk?"

"No."

"Kin you crawl?"

"Not as far as a rattler."

"Ez far ez that clearin'?"

"Yes."

"There's a hoss tethered out in that clearin'. I kin shift him to this
end."

"You're white all through," said the man gravely.

Peggy ran off to the clearing. The horse belonged to Sam Bedell, but
he had given Peggy permission to ride it whenever she wished. This was
equivalent, in Peggy's mind, to a permission to PLACE him where she
wished. She consequently led him to a point nearest the stockade, and,
thoughtfully, close beside a stump. But this took some time, and when
she arrived she found the fugitive already there, very thin and weak,
but still smiling.

"Ye kin turn him loose when you get through with him; he'll find his way
back," said Peggy. "Now I must go."

Without again looking at the man, she ran back to the stockade. Then she
paused until she heard the sound of hoofs crossing the highway in the
opposite direction from which the pursuers had crossed, and knew that
the fugiti