After a pause for breath, the man began to speak again, railing at his would-be murderers. He was talking ramblingly when there came a sound from the opposite side of the rock—a grunt, a curse, and, almost instantly, a shriek.
The wounded man raised himself and threw a glance of startled inquiry at Harlan: “What’s that?”
Harlan watched the man steadily.
“I reckon that’ll be that man Laskar,” he said slowly. “I lifted his gun an’ his rifle, an’ Dolver’s gun, an’ throwed them under Purgatory—my horse. Laskar has tried to get them, an’ Purgatory’s raised some objection.”
He stepped back and peered around the rock. Laskar was lying in the sand near the base of the rock, doubled up and groaning loudly, while Purgatory, his nostrils distended, his eyes ablaze, was standing over the weapons that lay in the sand, watching the groaning man malignantly.
Harlan returned to the wounded man, to find that he had collapsed and was breathing heavily.
For some minutes Harlan stood, looking down at him; then he knelt in the sand beside him and lifted his head. The man’s eyes were closed, and Harlan laid his head down again and examined the wound in his chest.
He shook his head as he got up, went to Purgatory, and got some water, which he used to wipe away the dust and blood which had become matted over the wound. He shook his head again after bathing the wound. The wound meant death for the man within a short time. Yet Harlan forced some water into the half-open mouth and bathed the man’s face with it.
For a long time after Harlan ceased to work with him the man lay in a stupor-like silence, limp and motionless, though his eyes opened occasionally, and by the light in them Harlan knew the man was aware of what he had been doing.
The sun was going now; it had become a golden, blazing ball which was sinking over the peaks of some distant mountains, its fiery rays stabbing the pale azure of the sky with brilliantly glowing shafts that threw off ever-changing seas of color that blended together in perfect harmony.