procession turned from the door. Seagrue led the
way to Rebstock's stable, and they laid Du Sang on some hay.

Afterward they got a cot under him. With surprising vitality he talked
a long time to Whispering Smith, but at last fell into a stupor. At
nine o'clock that night he sat up. Ed Banks and Kennedy were standing
beside the cot. Du Sang became delirious, and in his delirium called
the name of Whispering Smith; but Smith was at Baggs's cabin with Bill
Dancing. In a spasm of pain, Du Sang, opening his eyes, suddenly threw
himself back. The cot broke, and the dying man rolled under the feet
of the frightened horses. In the light of the lanterns they lifted him
back, but he was bleeding slowly at the mouth, quite dead.

The surgeon, afterward, found two fatal wounds upon him. The first
shot, passing through the stomach, explained Du Sang's failure to kill
at a distance in which, uninjured, he could have placed five shots
within the compass of a silver dollar. Firing for Whispering Smith's
heart, he had, despite the fearful shock, put four bullets through his
coat before the rifle-ball from the ground, tearing at right angles
across the path of the first bullet, had cut down his life to a
question of hours.

Bill Dancing, who had been hit in the head and stunned, had been moved
back to the cabin at Mission Spring, and lay in the little bedroom. A
doctor at Oroville had been sent for, but had not come. At midnight of
the second day, Smith, who was beside his bed, saw him rouse up, and
noted the brightness of his eyes as he looked around. "Bill," he
declared hopefully, as he sat beside the bed, "you are better, hang
it! I know you are. How do you feel?"

"Ain't that blamed doctor here yet? Then give me my boots. I'm going
back to Medicine Bend to Doc Torpy."

In the morning Whispering Smith, who had cleansed and dressed the
wound and felt sure the bullet had not penetrated the skull, offered
no objection to the proposal beyond cautioning him to ride slowly.
"You can go down part way with the prisoners, Bill," suggested
Whispering Smith. "Brill Young is going to take them to Oroville, and
you can act as chairman of the guard."

Before the party started, Smith called Seagrue to him. "George, you
saved my life once. Do you remember--in the Pan Handle? Well, I gave
you yours twice in the Cache day before yesterday. I don't know how
badly you are into this thing. If you kept clear of the killing at
Tower W I will do wh