llow circle of sickly yellow, it
showed two figures--that of the old man and the girl.

Dorothy carried the light, and when she held it high and let its rays
fall on the two figures, one sitting stooped with weariness and the
other stretched unconscious, her eyes dilated in a terror that choked
her, and her face went white.

But she said nothing. She only put down the lantern and slipped her arms
under the shoulders that lay in the wet grass, shuddering as her hands
closed on the warm moisture of blood, and Rowlett rose with an effort
and rallied his spent strength to lift the inert knees. While the old
man lighted their footsteps the little procession made its painful way
down what was left of the mountainside, across the road, and up into the
house.

* * * * *

When Haggard opened his eyes again he was lying with his wounds already
bathed and roughly bandaged. Plainly he was in a woman's room, for its
clean particularity and its huge old four-poster bed spread with a
craftily wrought "coverlet" proclaimed a feminine proprietorship. A
freshly built fire roared on a generous hearth, giving a sense of space
broadening and narrowing with fickle boundaries of shadow.

The orange brightness fell, too, on a figure that stood at the
foot-board looking down at him with anxiety-tortured eyes; a figure
whose heavy hair caught a bronze glimmering like a nimbus, and whose
hands were held to her breast with a clutching little suspended gesture
of dread.

Voices vaguely heard in disjointed fragments of talk called him back to
actuality.

The old man was speaking:

"... I fears me he kain't live long.... 'Pears like ther shot war a
shore deadener...." and from Rowlett came an indignant response "... I
heered ther crack from right spang behind us ... I wheeled 'round an'
shot three shoots back at ther flash."

Then Maggard heard, so low that it seemed a joyous and musical whisper,
the announcement from the foot of his bed:

"I'm goin' ter fetch Uncle Jase Burrell now, ter tend yore hurts, Cal,"
she said, softly. "I jest couldn't endure ter start away twell I seed ye
open yore eyes, though."

Maggard glanced toward Bas Rowlett who stood looking solicitously down
at him and licked his lips. There was an acknowledgment which decency
required his making in their presence, and he keyed himself for a feeble
effort to speak.

"Rowlett thar...." he began, faintly, and a cough seemed to start fres