er fingers there, pressing them tightly. If
this blood were life and she could keep it within him she would do it.
But he was so pale....

Brierly drove to Black Rock House instinctively. Here were beds,
servants and the telephone. He sounded his horn as they came up the
driveway and an excited group came out upon the porch. But Beth saw only
McGuire.

"Mr. Nichols has been shot, Mr. McGuire--he's dangerously hurt," she
appealed. "He's got to have a doctor--at once."

"Who--who shot him?"

"Hawk Kennedy."

"And he--Hawk----?"

"He's dead, I think."

She heard McGuire's sudden gasp and saw Aunt Tillie come running.

"He's got to be put to bed--Aunt Tillie," she pleaded.

"Of course," said McGuire, finding his voice suddenly, "Of course--at
once. The blue room, Mrs. Bergen. We'll carry him up. Send Stryker."

And Aunt Tillie ran indoors.

Peter was still quite unconscious, but between them they managed to get
him upstairs.

McGuire seemed now galvanized into activity and while the others cut
Peter's coat away and found the wound he got Hammonton and a doctor on
the 'phone. It was twelve miles away but he promised to be at Black Rock
House inside half an hour.

"Twenty minutes and you won't regret it. Drive like Hell. It's a matter
of life or death."

Meanwhile, Aunt Tillie, with anxious glances at Beth, had brought
absorbent cotton, clean linen, a basin of water and a sponge, and
Stryker and Brierly washed the wound, while McGuire rushed for his
bottle and managed to force some whisky and water between Peter's teeth.
The bullet they found had gone through the body and had come out at the
back, shattering the shoulder-blade. But the hemorrhage had almost
ceased and the wounded man's heart was still beating faintly.

"It's the blood he's lost," muttered Brierly sagely.

"He'll come around all right. You can't kill a man as game as that."

Beth clung to the arms of the chair in which they had placed her. "You
think--he--he'll live?"

"Sure he will. I've seen 'em worse'n that----"

She sank back into her chair, exhausted. She had never fainted in her
life and she wasn't going to begin. But now that all that they could do
had been done for Peter, they turned their attention to Beth. She had
not known how much she needed it. Her hair was singed, her wrists were
raw and bleeding, and her arms, half naked, were red and blistered. Her
dress, soaked with mud and water, was partly torn or burned away.

"Sh