"Dyin'? You ain't hurt bad, Bull!" "It's the bleeding; all the senses is running out of my head--like water--and the moon--is turning black--and--" He slumped down at the foot of the tree. CHAPTER 10 When old Farmer Morton and his son came in their buckboard through the marshes, they heard the screaming of Pete Reeve for help. Leaving their team, they bolted across country to the open glade. There they found Pete still shouting for help, kneeling above the body of a man, and working desperately to arrange an effectual tourniquet. They ran close and discovered the two men. Old Morton knew enough rude surgery to stop the bleeding. It was he who counted the pulse and listened to the heart. "Low," he said, "very low--life is just flickerin', stranger." "If they's as much light of life in him," said Pete Reeve, "as the flicker of a candle, I'll fan it up till it's as big as a forest fire. Man, he's got to live." "H'm!" said Morton. "And how come the shooting?" "Stop your fool questions," said Reeve. "Help me get him to town and to a bed." It was useless to attempt to carry that great, loose-limbed body. They brought the buckboard perilously through the shrubbery and then managed, with infinite labor, to lift Bull Hunter into it. With Pete Reeve supporting the head of the wounded man and cautioning them to drive gently, they managed the journey to the town as softly as possible. At the hotel a strong-armed cortege bore Bull to a bed, and they carried him reverently. Had his senses been with him he would have wondered greatly; and had his uncle, or his uncle's sons, been there, they would surely have laughed uproariously. In the hotel room Pete Reeve took command at once. "He's too big to die," he told the dubious doctor. "He's got to live. And the minute you say he can't, out you go and another doc comes in. Now do your work." The doctor, haunted by the deep, fiery eyes of the gunfighter, stepped into the room to minister to his patient. He had a vague feeling that, if Bull Hunter died, Pete Reeve would blame him for lack of care. In truth, Pete seemed ready to blame everyone. He threatened to destroy the whole village if a dog was allowed to howl in the night, or if the baby next door were permitted to cry in the day. Silence settled over the little town--silence and the fear of Pete Reeve. Pete himself never left the sickroom. Wide-eyed, silent-footed, he was ever about. He seemed never to sleep, and the doctor swore that the only reason Bull Hunter did not die was because death feared to enter the room while the awful Reeve was there. But the long hours of unconsciousness and delirium wore away. Then came the critical period when a relapse was feared. Finally the time came when it could be confidently stated that Bull was recovering his health and his strength.