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"If she doesn't die soon--she's got a chance--the barest chance to live," he said

He wondered if the internal bleeding had ceased There was no more film of blood upon her lips But no corpse could have been whiter Opening her blouse, he untied the scarf, and carefully picked away the sage leaves frohtly, he ascertained that the same was true of the hole where the bullet had come out He reflected on the fact that clean wounds closed quickly in the healing upland air He recalled instances of riders who had been cut and shot apparently to fatal issues; yet the blood had clotted, the wounds closed, and they had recovered He had no way to tell if internal hee still went on, but he believed that it had stopped

Otherwise she would surely not have lived so long He marked the entrance of the bullet, and concluded that it had just touched the upper lobe of her lung Perhaps the wound in the lung had also closed As he began to wash the blood stains frouely conscious of a strange, grave happiness in the thought that she h on the cliff-riht him to consideration of what he had better do

And while busy with his few ca in hisin his present hiding-place And if he intended to follow the cattle trail and try to find the rustlers he had betterriders, would not ht's absence fro ones failed to show up in reasonable time there would be a search And Venters was afraid of that

"A good tracker could trail me," he muttered "And I'd be cornered here Let's see Rustlers are a lazy set when they're not on the ride I'll risk it Then I'll change uns When he rose to go he bent a long glance down upon the unconscious girl Then ordering Whitie and Ring to keep guard, he left the camp The safest cover lay close under the wall of the canyon, and here through the dense thickets Ventersthe wide opening he decided to cross it and follow the left wall till he came to the cattle trail He scanned the oval as keenly as if hunting for antelope