e
resentment.

Christian quickly put her hand on his shoulder.

"Don't mind, Michael. Let me see what has happened to her--"

Nancy's eye rolled back at Christian, as she stooped over her, leaning
on Donovan. Already, a dark pool was forming beside her.

"You couldn't see where the branch bet her, Miss," said Donovan,
quieted by Christian's touch, "but there's what done it!" He pointed
to the sharp, jagged end of one of the branches, red with blood.

"The Vet--" said Christian, trying to think, speaking steadily.
"Couldn't someone fetch Mr. Cassidy?"

"No good, my dear," said old Kearney, wagging his head; "No good at
all! There's no medicine for her now but what'll come out of a gun!"

Christian looked up into the faces of the little knot of men round
her.

"Is that true?" she said, watching them.

And all the time a voice in her mind said to her that it was true.

"God knows I wouldn't wish it for the best money ever I handled," said
one man, and looked aside from her eyes.

Another shook his head, and muttered something about the Will o' God.
A third said it was the sharp end of the branch that played hammock
with her; he lost a cow once himself the same way. Old Kearney summed
up for the group.

"There is no doubt in it, Miss Christian, my dear child--"

Christian leaned hard on Larry's shoulder as she rose to her feet.

"I'm going to get Carmody's gun," she said, beginning to walk away.
"He had one. I saw it. I don't suppose he'll mind lending it to me."

CHAPTER XXIV

There are illnesses that take possession of their victims slowly and
quietly, with an imperceptible start, and a gradual crescendo of
envelopment; others there are, that strike, sudden as a hawk, or a
bullet. And this is true also of that other illness, the fever of the
mind and heart that is called Love. An old song says, and says, for
the most part, truly,

"I attempt from Love's sickness to fly in vain."

Larry Coppinger did not attempt to fly, even though he knew as
precisely the moment when the fever struck him, as did Peter's wife's
mother when her fever left her. Perhaps he might then have tried to
escape; he knew it was too late now. That fatal rapturous moment had
been when he saw Christian setting forth, a lonely, piteous figure, to
fetch Carmody's gun. He had followed her, and his entreaties to her to
let him deal with the matter had prevailed. She had turned back, and
kneeling down again, kissed the white