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“We ought to be hung for letting him come down here alone,” Weary repented. “It ain’t safe for one man in this cursed country. Where’s he hurt, Cadwolloper?”

“How in hell do I know?” Anxiety ever sharpened the tongue of Pink. “If somebody’d bring some water–“

“Happy’s gone. And there ain’t a drop uh whisky in the crowd! Can’t we get him into the shade? This damned sun is enough to–“

“Look out how yuh lift him, man! You ain’t wrassling a calf, remember! You take his shoulder, Jack–easy, yuh damned, awkward–“

“Here comes Happy, with his hat full. Don’t slosh it all on at once! A little at a time’s better. Get some on his head.”

So with much incoherence and with everybody giving orders and each acting independently, they bore him tenderly into the shade of a rock and worked over him feverishly, their faces paler than his. When he opened his eyes and stared at them dully, they could have shouted for very relief. When he closed them again they bent over him solicitously and dripped more water from the hat of Happy Jack. And not one of them but remembered remorsefully the things they had said of him, not an hour before; the things they had said even when he was lying there alone and hurt–hurt unto death, for all they knew.

When he was roused enough to groan when they moved him, however gently, they began to consider the problem of getting him to camp, and they cursed the long, hot miles that lay between. They tried to question him, but if he understood what they were saying he could not reply except by moaning, which was not good to hear. All that they could gather was that when they moved his body in a certain way the pain of it was unbearable. Also, he would faint when his head was lowered, or even lifted above the level. They must guard against that if they meant to get him to camp alive.

“We’ll have to carry him up this cussed hill, and then–If he could ride at all, we might make it.”

“The chances is he’ll die on the road,” croaked Happy Jack tactlessly, and they scowled at him for voicing the fear they were trying to ignore. They had been trying not to think that he might die on the road, and they had been careful not to mention the possibility. As it was, no one answered.

How they ever got him to the top of that heartbreaking slope, not one of them ever knew. Twice he fainted outright. And Happy Jack, carefully bearing his hat full of water for just that emergency, slipped and spilled the whole of it just when they needed it most. At the last, it was as if they carried a dead man between them–Jack Bates and Cal Emmett it was who bore him up the last steep climb–and Pink and Weary, coming behind with all the horses, glanced fearfully into each other’s eyes and dared not question.

At the top they laid him down in the grass and swore at Happy Jack, because they must do something, and because they dared not face what might be before them. They avoided looking at one another while they stood helplessly beside the still figure of the man they had maligned. If he died, they would always have that bitter spot in their memory–and even with the fear of his dying they stood remorseful.

Of a sudden Andy opened his eyes and looked at them with the light of recognition, and they bent eagerly toward him. “If–yuh could–on–my horse–I–I–could ride–maybe.” Much pain it cost him, they knew by the look on his face. But he was game to the last–just as they knew he would be.

“Yuh couldn’t ride Twister, yuh know yuh couldn’t,” Pink objected gently. “But–if yuh could ride Jack’s horse–he’s dead gentle, and we’d help hold yuh on. Do you think yuh could?”