In the meanwhile, Leland, after stopping some twenty minutes for breakfast, climbed into the binder's saddle and drove through the wheat until almost noon. He did not seem to see quite so well as usual, and his head ached almost intolerably. Gallwey's jacket also hampered him, until, tearing it off, he let it fall. It was afterwards found, ripped in several places by the knife and tied up in a sheaf. The day was fiercely hot, and the dust rose thick from crackling stubble and trampled soil, but Leland drove on, swaying now and then in his saddle, the perspiration dripping from him. It was close upon the dinner hour, and the sun was almost overhead in a cloudless sky, when he approached a turning. The glare from the yellow wheat was dazzling, and the ironwork on the binder almost too hot to touch with the hand, and Leland once more found his sight grow blurred as he strove to turn his team. They did not seem to answer the guidance of the reins, and when the machine, turning short, ran in among the wheat, he raised himself a little as he called to them. That was the last thing he remembered. The next instant, the man behind him saw him reel and topple from the saddle as the whirling arms came round. He pulled his team up, and, jumping down, ran as for his life; but, most fortunately, Leland's tired horses had stopped of their own accord in a pace or two, for, when the other man came up, their driver lay partly across the knife-sheath with his feet among the wheat. What could be seen of his face was darkly flushed, while the sleeve and breast of his dusty shirt were smeared with trickling red. The other man, startled as he was, had, however, sense enough to seize the near horse's head before he shouted to his comrades. "Lay hold of the wheel, two of you," he said when several of them came running up. "Now get up, somebody, and pull the driving-clutch out. We don't want to saw him open." He had kept himself in hand, but he gasped with relief when the deadly steel was thrown out of action. Then, still holding the horses, he directed the rest to drag Leland clear. It was a minute later when he pushed the others aside and bent over him. Leland lay limp and still in the dusty stubble, with eyes half closed, and a red trickle dripping into the thirsty soil beneath him. The man, who had seen a good many bad axe-wounds in the Ontario bush, rolled back the breast and sleeve of the torn shirt before he straightened himself and wiped his dripping face. "I guess he has come off quite fortunate, in one way. There's no big vessel cut, or it would spout," he said. "The first thing to do is to get him out of the sun, and it's not very far to the house."