For some moments Jim made no reply. He was searching in every direction for a sign of the man who should have been there with his horse. There was none that he could discover.
“I don’t see him around,” he said. “I don’t see a sign of a noon camp.” He drew a deep breath. Then he added, with a decision that was unforced: “But he’s there, sure. He’s right down there—somewhere.”
He glanced round at the girl beside him as he spoke, and discovered something of the effect which the sight of Pedro had had upon her. She was deathly pale in the sunlight, and her eyes had widened with a look of deep concern.
“You think that?” she cried. “You guess he’s—down there? Then,” she went on, as Jim inclined his head, “something bad’s happened. He’s—he’s sick, or it’s a fall. Maybe—he’s—— Oh, say, Jim, we can get right down there? Yes, sure we can. I know. Oh, let’s get right on down. Maybe he’s hurt. Maybe——”
But Jim waited for no more. He had caught the infection of Molly’s fears. To Molly it seemed that Lightning must be sick. It was even possible he had had a fall. To Jim it was neither of these things which had left Pedro still saddled and bridled, grazing free. Surely there was more lying behind their discovery. And it was the thought of grave possibilities that set him hastily moving on to the descent to the lagoon.
Lightning stirred uneasily. A muffled sound escaped him that terminated in an almost soundless, choking cough. The weak movement of his head and chest, as the fit went on, had utter helplessness in it. But it ceased at last, and his lips were dyed with crimson, and a trickle of blood had found its way to the corners of his mouth.
The cattleman was sprawled in the shade of an up-standing boulder. He was propped against it, with his long legs spread out towards the lapping waters of the lagoon, which were almost within reach of the hand that lay palm upwards on the bed of stone upon which he was lying. It was the identical boulder that had once sheltered Molly.
He looked to have slipped down from the sitting position he had originally taken up. Now only his shoulders rested against the water-smoothed sides of the stone. He was lying over, almost on his side. His grizzled, bare head was lolling forward, till his tatter of whisker was pressed down on his blood-stained shirt. His eyes were closed, and his sunken cheeks were ghastly. Then, too, his lower jaw was slightly sagging, in the grievous fashion of a creature whose last will-power is exhausted.
But, whatever his appearance, exhaustion of will was not yet. The shattered body was living in a soul that refused to yield. Lightning was near enough to death. But the work he had designed was not yet completed, and so he battled to hold together the dregs of his life.