he wagon.

"Why, where's Frank?" she asked, going up to where Lone was dismounting
in silence.

"He's there--in the wagon. We picked him up back here about
three-quarters of a mile or so."

"What's the matter? Is he drunk?" This was Sorry who came up to Swan
and stood ready to lend a hand.

"He's so drunk he falls out of wagon down the road, but he don't have
whisky smell by his face," was Swan's ambiguous reply.

"He's not hurt, is he?" Lorraine pressed close, and felt a hand on her
arm pulling her gently away.

"He's hurt," Lone said, just behind her. "We'll take him into the
bunk-house and bring him to. Run along to the house and don't
worry--and don't say anything to your dad, either. There's no need to
bother him about it. We'll look after Frank."

Already Swan and Sorry and Jim were lifting Frank's limp form from the
rear of the wagon. It sagged in their arms like a dead thing, and
Lorraine stepped back shuddering as they passed her. A minute later
she followed them inside, where Jim was lighting the lamp with shaking
fingers. By the glow of the match Lorraine saw how sober Jim looked,
how his chin was trembling under the drooping, sandy moustache. She
stared at him, hating to read the emotion in his heavy face that she
had always thought so utterly void of feeling.

"It isn't--he isn't----" she began, and turned upon Swan, who was
beside the bunk, looking down at Frank's upturned face. "Swan, if it's
serious enough for a doctor, can't you send another thought message to
your mother?" she asked. "He looks--oh, Lone! He isn't _dead_, is he?"

Swan turned his head and stared down at her, and from her face his
glance went sharply to Lone's downcast face. He looked again at
Lorraine.

"To-night I can't talk with my mind," Swan told her bluntly. "Not
always I can do that. I could ask Lone how can a man be drunk so he
falls off the wagon when no whisky smell is on his breath."

"Breath? Hell! There ain't no breath to smell," Sorry exclaimed as
unexpectedly as his speeches usually were. "If he's breathin' I can't
tell it on him."

"He's got to be breathing!" Lone declared with a suppressed fierceness
that made them all look at him. "I found a half bottle of whisky in
his pocket--but Swan's right. There wasn't a smell of it on his
breath--I tell you now, boys, that he was lying in the sand between two
sagebrushes, on his face. And there is where he got the blow--_behind
his ear_. I