"There he is," said Billee in a low voice.
Snake and Yellin' Kid stopped in their tracks. But Bud, who, perhaps, was too young to feel any squeamishness at the proximity to death, hurried forward and knelt beside the motionless figure. Seeing what their chum had done, Nort and Dick started to follow. But they were halted, when they had almost reached the man, by Bud's voice exclaiming:
"He isn't dead at all! He's breathing!"
"He is?" cried Nort.
"Sure! He isn't dead at all! Get me some water. We ought to have a doctor, but maybe we can pull him around until we can find one. But get some water—pronto!"
Dick slung his canteen around, pulled out the stopper and, an instant later, was kneeling beside Bud and the stranger. Nort helped Bud, on the opposite side, support the man's head, which appeared to be but loosely attached to his body and the boys finally succeeded in forcing a little water between the almost lifeless lips.
"We ought to have some sort of a stimulant," said Bud as he noticed a faint flickering of the man's eyelids, as though life was struggling hard to return to the frame it had almost decided to vacate.
"I got some aromatic ammonia in my saddle bags," said Dick. "Your mother put it in with a lot of other medicine, thinking we might need it."
"We do, now, and mighty bad!" exclaimed Bud. "Rustle it here, Dick."
A little later the powerful heart stimulant, mixed with a little water, was being administered to the stranger, and when the fumes of it had done their work the fluttering of his eyelids became stronger.