While back at the mouth of the coulee lay two unconscious forms, their bodies partly awash in the lapping waves of the rising river.
CHAPTER X
JANET MCWHORTER
The Texan stirred uneasily. Vaguely, he sensed that something was wrong. His head ached horribly but he didn't trouble to open his eyes. He was in the corral lying cramped against the fence where the Red King had thrown him, and with bared teeth, and forefeet pawing the air, the Red King was coming toward him. Another moment and those terrible hoofs would be striking, cutting, trampling him into the trodden dirt of the corral. Why didn't someone haze him off? Would they sit there on the fence and see him killed? "Whoa, boy—Whoa!" In vain he struggled to raise an arm—it was held fast, and his legs were pinned to the ground by a weight! He struggled violently, his eyes flew open and—there was no Red King, no corral—only a grassed slope strewn with rocks against one of which his head rested. But why was he tied? With great effort he rolled over. The weight that held his legs shifted, and he found that one of his arms was free. He sat up and stared, and instantly recollection of the events of the night, brutally vivid, crowded his brain. There was no slow, painful tracing step by step, of the happenings of the past twelve hours. The whole catenation in proper sequence presented itself in one all-embracing vision—a scene painted on canvas, rather than the logical continuity of a screen picture.
The unconscious form of the girl lay across his legs. Her temple, and part of her cheek that lay within range of his vision were white with the pallor of death, and the hand that stretched upward toward his own, showed blue and swollen from the effect of the tightly knotted scarf. Swiftly the man untied the knots, and staggering to his feet, raised the limp form and half-carried, half-dragged it to a tiny plateau higher up the slope. Very gently he laid the girl on the grass, loosened her shirt at the throat, and removed her wet boots. Her hands and feet were ice cold, and he chafed them vigorously. Gradually, under the rubbing the sluggish blood flowed. The blue look faded from her hand and a slight tinge of colour crept into her cheeks. With a sigh of relief, the Texan grasped her by the shoulder and shook her roughly. After a few moments her eyelids fluttered slightly, and her lips moved. The shaking continued, and he bent to catch the muttered words:
"Win——"
"Yeh, Win'll be 'long, directly. Come, wake up!"
"Win—dear—I'm—so—sleepy."