Morgan saw her start toward him, running. He tried to step forward to meet her, but only his body moved in accord with his will. The earth seemed to rise and embrace him, letting him down softly, as the arms of a friend.
It was a new pain that brought Morgan to his senses, the pain of returning life to his half-dead arms. Somebody was standing beside him holding these members raised to let the blood drain out of them, chafing them, and there was a smell of camphor and strong spirits in the place.
"The rope wouldn't 'a' slipped down, if they was tryin' to hang him, anyhow," somebody said with conclusive finality.
"Looks like they lassoed him and drug him," another said, full of the awe that hushes the human voice when one stands beside the dead.
"Whoever done it ought to be skinned alive!" a woman declared, and Morgan thanked her in his heart for her sympathy, although there was a weight of such absolute weakness on his eyes that he could not open them to see her face.
There was a dim sound of something being stirred in a glass, and the nerve-waking scent of more ardent spirits.
"If this don't fetch him to," said the voice of the first speaker, the deep pectoral tone of a seasoned man, "you jump your horse and go for the doctor, Fred."
Morgan shook his head to throw that obstinate weight from his eyes, or thought he shook it, but it was only the shadow of a movement. Slight as it was it brought an exclamation of relief in another voice, a woman's voice, also, tuned in the music of youth.
"Oh! he moved!" she said. And she was the one who stood beside him, holding aloft and chafing his blood-gorged arm.
"Blamed if he didn't! Here—try a little of this, son."