et
down, the arm and wrist and hand were black, and beginning to swell.
The lacerations torn in the side of the palm by the Gila monster's
fangs appeared to be clotted with purple blood.

"I rubbed in snake medicine--permanganate of potash crystals," quavered
the girl. "That'll kill the poison and not hurt you a bit. You're all
right now--only we'll have to ease off a little on your arm. Take some
good deep breaths."

Though sick and giddy and still faint, Lennon forced himself to obey. He
rallied sufficiently to sit up. Carmena loosened the tourniquet and
briskly rubbed his swollen hand and arm. The tingling pain of returning
circulation roused him like a stimulant. But the poison had not all been
sucked from the wounds or counteracted in the veins by the permanganate.
Before the girl could again twist tight the tourniquet he sank down for
the second time, unconscious.

Out of the utter blankness of oblivion he first dreamed that he was
alternately swimming through a rough sea and rocking in a wave-tossed
boat---- A gush of water dashed into his face--then the sea appeared to
solidify into dry sand. He became conscious that Carmena was violently
rolling him from side to side and slapping his face. She paused in this
punishment to pump his arms above his head, forcing the air in and out
of his lungs.

He struggled feebly to free himself. The girl jerked him to a sitting
position and, with a desperate output of lithe strength, grasped his
body from behind to heave him upright. He gained his feet, but was far
too giddy to stand alone. The girl clasped his left arm about her neck
and rushed him out beside the pony.

"Brace up!" she breathlessly implored him. "Grip hold of his mane with
your good hand. We'll have to hit out. The broncs are coming."

She ran back to snatch up Lennon's sombrero, the rifles and one of the
canteens. The other had been emptied into Lennon's face. Out again she
darted to clap the sombrero on his drenched head and steady him with a
hand on the tourniquet. A guttural command started the pony off at a
walk. The direction chosen by his mistress was northwest, aslant the
Basin, almost at right angles to the jagged hill where she had seen the
smoke puffs.

For a while Lennon tottered and reeled like a drunken man. Time and
again he stumbled and would have sunk down upon the hot sand but for the
convulsive clutch of his left hand on the pony's mane and the strong
support of Carmena at his other