than have all of the gold in the mountains!'

Her excitement, too, ran high, her words came tripping over one
another, heedless and extravagant. But Howard suddenly glowed, and
when she put her hands out to him he took them both and squeezed them
hard.

'Why, God bless you, you're a brick!' he cried warmly. 'And, in spite
of the rest of 'em, I'm glad I did make a fool of myself!'

From his wounded arm a trickle of blood had run down to his hand.
Helen cried out as she saw the smear across the sleeve of his shirt.

'He's hurt!' she exclaimed.

He laughed at her.

'It would be worth it if I were,' he told her gently. 'But I'm not.'
He slipped his foot into the stirrup. 'Dave,' he said over his
shoulder, 'you and Chuck had better look at Monte. I don't know how
bad his hurt is. Do what ever you can for him. If I'm wanted, I'm at
the ranch.'

But Helen, carried out of herself by the excitement of the moment and
unconscious that she was clinging to him, pleaded with him not to go
yet.

'Wait until we decide what we are going to do,' she told him earnestly.
'Won't you, please?'

'You bet I will!' he answered, his voice ringing with his eagerness to
do anything she might ask of him. 'If _you_ want me to stay, here I
stick.'

He dropped the reins and with her at his side turned back to the
others. Already two men were kneeling beside Monte Devine. Chuck
Evans, who had got there first, looked up and announced:

'He's come to, Al. He looks sick, but he ain't hurt much, I'd say for
a guess. Not for a tough gent like him. How about it, Monte?'

Monte growled something indistinct, but when at the end of it he
demanded a drink of whisky his voice was both clear and steady. Chuck
laughed. Thereafter those who knew most of such matters looked over
both Monte's and Ed True's injuries and gave what first-aid they could.
It was Chuck's lively opinion that both gents were due for a little
quiet spell at a hospital, but that they'd be getting in trouble again
inside a month or so.

'You can't kill them kind,' he concluded lightly. 'Not so easy.'

They called to Bettins, but he held back upon the far side of the gulch
and finally withdrew and disappeared. Then Longstreet, who had been
restless but quiet-tongued for ten minutes, exclaimed quickly:

'We must get these two men over to our camp right away, where we can
have better light, and put them into bed until a physician can be
summoned. Think of the h