It was true the young man appeared much the worse for the encounter. In the first place, he stood upon one foot, a good deal like a crane, for his left ankle had twisted when he fell. His left arm, too, was wrenched, and he felt a tingling sensation all through the member, from the shoulder to the tips of his fingers.
Beside, his sleeve was ripped its entire length, and the lion’s claws had cut deep into his arm. The breast of his shirt was in strips.
“I say! I’m hurt, worse than I thought, eh?” he said, a little uncertainly. He wavered a moment on his sound foot, and then sank slowly to the grass.
“Wait! Don’t let yourself go!” exclaimed the girl, getting into quick action. “It isn’t so bad.”
She ran for the leather water-bottle that hung from her saddle. Molly had stood through the trouble without moving. Now the girl filled the bottle at the spring.
Pratt Sanderson was lying back on his elbows, and the white lids were lowered over his black eyes.
The treatment the range girl gave him was rather rough, but extremely efficacious. She dashed half the contents of the bottle into his face, and he sat up, gasping and choking. She tore away his tattered shirt in a most matter-of-fact manner and began to bathe the scratches on his chest with her kerchief (quickly unknotted from around her throat), which she had saturated with water. Fortunately, the wounds were not very deep, after all.
“You–you must think me a silly sort of chap,” he gasped. “Foolish to keel over like this—”
“You haven’t been used to seeing blood,” the girl observed. “That makes a difference. I’ve been binding up the boys’ cuts and bruises all my life. Never was such a place as the old Bar-T for folks getting hurt.”
“Bar-T?” ejaculated the young man, with sudden interest. “Then you must be Miss Rugley, Captain Dan Rugley’s daughter?”