"I doubt if I shall ever ride again," groaned the man. "The knife has done its work, I guess; and it is only what I might have expected. It has come home to me—my own—"
"Don't speak of it."
"Well, what's done can't be undone. But I am glad 'twas in defending you that I got it."
While this conversation was going on, brokenly, the stranger was busy in completing the binding up of the wound as carefully and quickly as he was able, remembering that a few yards off another was needing his help. This done, he allowed the female to take his place by the head of the patient, so as to give the needed support, and turned towards the clump of trees behind which that other had fallen. But, to his astonishment, when he reached the spot, no man was there. In another minute, the mystery was explained by a hoarse shout of derision, as it seemed, from the direction in which the hobbled horses had been; and glancing thitherward, the young man perceived that the ruffian, as no doubt he was, had so far recovered from the effects of the bullet wound as to crawl to the remaining horse, which he had managed to unhobble and mount.
"A pretty enough shot," he hallooed, laughing, as he rode away; "but it would take more than a popgun like that to—" The remainder of the sentence was lost in the distance.
The "popgun" lay at the stranger's feet. It was a small pocket-pistol, but sufficiently venomous-looking, he thought, as he picked it up, and retraced his steps to the wounded man still on his hands.
"The fellow has got off without serious damage, it seems," he said to the young woman. "I don't know whether I ought to be glad or sorry that you did not kill him outright," he added.
"Oh, I did not want to hurt him much," she replied, gravely. "I only shot him in the knee. I judged that the shock would make him let me go then, and I knew that he would not be able to run after me. If I hadn't done that, I might have been beyond the reach of help."
("You are a cool hand, at all events," thought the stranger, but he did not speak.)
"And now, if you will be so good as to help me home with poor Styles; but must you be getting forward with your own affairs?"