faster than he had come up. Leaping like a goat, sliding, rushing--he
raced to the bottom in a direct line for Ashton.

The victim lay as he had fallen, his head ghastly 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.

"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."

"Up on the hill?" Ashton twisted his head about, in alarm, to look at
the hill crest. "But if he--He may shoot again."

"Not this time. I went up for him. He went down faster, other side the
hill. Saw him on the run. The sneaking--" Blake closed his lips on the
word. After a moment his grimness relaxed. "Came back to start your
funeral. Found you'd cheated the undertaker. How do you feel now?"

"I believe I--" began Ashton, again trying to raise himself, only to
sink back as before. "My head!--What makes me so weak?"

"Don't worry," reassured Blake. "It's only a scalp wound. You are weak