“Oh—I’m dying!” continued Joe, pressing his hand against his head, while the pain and loss of blood actually produced a faintness, and his voice became very weak.
“Are you really much hurt?” continued Glenn, stooping down, and feeling his pulse.
“It’s all over!” muttered Joe. “I’m going fast. Sancte Petre!—Pater noster, qui es in coelis, sanctificeter nomen tuum; adveniat regnum tu—”
Here Joe’s voice failed, and, falling into a syncope, Glenn and Sneak lifted him up and carried him into the house.
“Is he shot?” exclaimed Mary, instantly producing some lint and bandages which she had prepared in anticipation of such an event.
“I fear he has received a serious hurt,” said Glenn, aiding Mary, who had proceeded at once to bind up the wound.
“I’ll be split if he’s shot!” said Sneak, going out and returning to his post. Glenn did likewise when he saw the first indications of returning consciousness in his man; and Mary was left alone to restore and nurse poor Joe. But he could not have been in better hands.
“I should like to know something about them curious words the feller was speaking when he keeled over,” said Sneak, as he looked out at the now quiet scene from the loophole, and mused over the events of the night. “I begin to believe that the feller’s a going to die. I don’t believe any man could talk so, if he wasn’t dying.”
“Have you seen any of them lately?” inquired Boone, coming to Sneak’s post and running his eye along the horizon through the loophole.
“Not a one,” replied Sneak, “except that feller laying out yander by the snowball.”