They found Loring lying on his face, his right hand still grasping the bridle of the dead horse. The girl was kneeling beside him. As McKay reached her side, he recognized the daughter of the manager of the mine. He raised her to her feet, while as if dazed by the miracle he repeated: “You ain’t hurt, Miss Cameron? You ain’t hurt?” She shook herself free from him, then knelt again by Stephen, trying to stanch with her handkerchief the blood that was flowing from a great cut in his temple. She looked up at McKay with an anxious appeal in her eyes. “Is he dead?” she asked.
“The girl was kneeling beside him.” [Page 36]
McKay bent over, and opening the rough shirt felt Loring’s heart. “No, he’s alive still, but he’s pretty close to gone,” he answered. He untwisted the tight clenched fingers from the bridle, and half raised the unconscious body. It lay limp in his arms. He turned to one of the foremen who were gathered around.
“Smith, get a horse and ride like hell for the company doctor!” The man was off for the corral in an instant.
“Now, Miss, you just leave him to us!” went on McKay. “See now, your skirt is getting all blood.”
For reply, she raised Loring’s head gently and placed it in her lap. “Now, send some one for blankets and water,” she directed.
“Agua, hey, ag-ua!” shouted McKay, and in a minute a little pale-faced water boy came stumbling up with a bucket of muddy water. McKay looked on in wonder while the girl deftly washed the dirt from the wounds.
“She has her nerve,” he thought. “There ain’t nothing like a woman.”
One of the Mexicans came back from the cook tent with a blanket, and upon this they gently lifted Stephen. Then four men carried him to the nearest tent. Jean walked beside them, holding her wet handkerchief tightly against Loring’s forehead, in vain attempt to stop the bleeding. They laid him on the ground, inside the tent.