The victim lay as he had fallen, his head ghastly 211 red with blood, which was still oozing from his wound. Blake dropped down beside the flaccid body and tore open the front of the silk shirt. He thrust in his hand. For some moments he was baffled by the violent throbbing of his own pulse. Then, at last, he detected a heartbeat, very feeble and slow yet unmistakable.
He turned Ashton on his side, and washing away the blood with water from the canteen, examined the wound with utmost carefulness. The bullet had pierced the scalp and plowed a furrow down along the side of the skull, grazing but not penetrating the bone.
“Only stunned.... Mighty close, though,” muttered Blake. He looked at the ashen face of the wounded man and added apprehensively, “Too close!... Concussion––”
Hastily he knotted a compress bandage made of handkerchiefs and neckerchiefs around the bleeding head, and stretching Ashton flat on his back, began to pump his arms up and down as is done in resuscitating a drowned person. After a time Ashton’s face began to lose its deathly pallor. His heart beat less feebly; he drew in a deep sighing breath, and stared up dazedly at Blake, with slowly returning consciousness.
“I’ll smoke all I please and when I please,” he murmured in a supercilious drawl.
Blake dashed his face with the cupful of water still left in the canteen. The wounded man flushed with quick anger and attempted to rise. 212
“What––what you––How dare you?” he spluttered, only to sink back with a groan, “My head! O-o-oh! You’ve smashed my head!”
“You’re in luck that your head wasn’t smashed,” replied Blake. “It was a bullet knocked you over.”
“Bullet?” echoed Ashton.
“Yes. Scoundrel up on the hill tried to get us both.”