"So you did squeal on me, you damned German!" he yelled. "Take that and that and that." He fired three times full at von Rittenheim's face. With the third shot another rang in unison, and Pressley fell, twisted and snarling, on the stone before his still. Bob Morgan's hand, holding the smoking pistol, fell to his side. "Are you all right, von Rittenheim?" he asked; then added, weakly, "I reckon you'll have to carry me down, boys. He's touched me." And he staggered into Friedrich's arms. He had been walking a stride higher up the hill-side than von Rittenheim, and, flinging himself from his greater elevation between the German and his assailant, he had received the bullets meant for Friedrich's head lower in his own body. XXIV "Fought the Fight" Bob lay white and still upon his bed, breathing painfully. Two of Pink's bullets had torn their way through his lungs, and the third had splintered his collar-bone. A surgeon had come out from Asheville, and, after examining the wounds, had sent for help. When the second physician arrived, they had probed and prodded the inert body, while Dr. Morgan, with an ever-growing fear clutching at his heart, administered the chloroform with a steady hand. Outside the door Mrs. Morgan had knelt against the wall, tearless, and without a word of prayer. Now it was over, and there was no hope, only waiting for the end,--the waiting that saps courage from the heart of the onlooker, and makes endurance seem a thing impossible; the torture of seeing suffering that is not to be relieved; suffering that seems all unnecessary, since death is to be the issue after all. Bob had asked for Sydney as soon as he came out of the chloroform, and she had responded at once. "You won't leave me, dear?" he had questioned, when he opened his eyes from the drowsiness that the opiate forced upon him, and saw her sitting beside him. "No, Bob; I'll stay as long as you want me." He had smiled feebly at her. "It won't be very long." A glimmer in his eyes showed that he understood the possible impertinent interpretation of his speech. "You won't mind letting me hold your hand, Sydney, will you?" he had said, in his hoarse, weak voice. "It's one of the perquisites of dying. Tuck your fingers in there, dear. Those doctors have strapped me up so I can't move my arm." So she sat with her hand in his, and her eyes looking out across the meadows to Buck Mountain, while Bob dozed and woke and dozed again, always smiling happily at her when he found her still beside him, and pressing her fingers in his weak grasp. As the sun sank towards the west he roused from his stupefied slumber, and spoke with growing clearness. "It's mighty good of you to stay here, Sydney. I'm selfish to ask you, but I haven't seen you much lately, I've been so busy with the crops." "You've never failed me, Bob dear. It's my turn now."