Then an inch of the rope came landward, as the broncho strained upon it. The anchor had started from its hold.
"Now! now!" said Van, and with quick, skillful urging he caught at the slight advantage.
Like an old, half-buried pile, reluctant to budge from its bed in sand and ooze, the human form was slowly dragged from the place. No corpse, rudely snatched from its grave, could have been more helplessly inert—more stretched out of all living semblance to a man.
[Illustration: No corpse snatched from its grave could have been more helplessly inert.]
Across the firmer sand, and through a lagoon of water, Barger was hurriedly drawn. The pony was halted when the man was at the bank, and back to the convict Van went running, to loosen the bite of the noose.
Barger lay prostrate on the earth, his eyes dully blinking in the sun. His feet were bare. They had slipped from his boots, which were buried beyond in the sand. His face had taken on a hue of death. From hair to his ankles he was shockingly emaciated—a gaunt, wasted figure, motionless as clay.
Van fetched a pint of water in his hat. He sprinkled it roughly in the convict's face, and, propping up his head, helped him to take a drink.
Barger could not lift a hand, or utter a word. Van recoiled the rope, secured it on the saddle, then sat down to await the man's recovery. It was slow. Barger's speech was the first returning function. It was faint, and weak, and blasphemous.