The ruffian gave a rapid look round in vain search for a way of escape, and then, as his shifty eyes met Broncho's stern ones, full of a steely glitter of held-in anger, with a gesture of overdone indifference he brought his hands together over his head. Whilst the cowboy covered his prisoner, Tari sped back to the boat for a length of rope, and Loyola and Jim knelt anxiously over the prostrate form of the rolling-stone. "If he's killed him," began the boy hoarsely. "If he's killed him----" and there was murder in the small voice. "No! no! no!" wailed the woman, as she chafed Jack's hands feverishly. The thoughtful bluejacket, who had rushed to the water's edge after one glimpse of the purple face, reappeared with his cap full of water. "We'll put life into him in less than no time," he exclaimed heartily, scattering the water over the rover's suffused countenance with a vigorous heave. Tari made quick time to the boat and back, and he and Broncho between them trussed the discomfited Hawksley in a most scientific manner. In vain his cunning tongue pleaded eloquently on his behalf. They paid no heed. "I found that man kissing my wife," he began, a whole world of outraged justice in his oily tones. "We found you stranglin' a blind man," replied Broncho sternly, as he clove-hitched the seizing on his prisoner's wrists. "I swear to God I didn't know he was blind," declared Hawksley vehemently. "When I saw him hugging my wife I went for him, as any man would. I was only going to teach him." "Teach Derringer Jack a lesson?" drawled Broncho. "Wall, I surmise he had to be blind an' starved an' near dead o' thirst, or the rope would have been round your horns, mister." "I'm bleeding. Ain't you got the humanity to bind up my arm?" whined the wretch, seeing his first line of argument had no effect. "I'm shore a whole lot sorry it was your arm an' not your black heart I put a bullet through," returned Broncho sourly, without any offer to doctor the wounded member. "Loyola, you wench," cried the exasperated Hawksley, "ain't you got no sense of duty? Would you let your husband bleed to death?" The woman rose slowly to her feet from Jack's side, and without a word tore a strip off her skirt; then, with a look of the most utter aversion in her face, deftly bound up her husband's wound. "What are you going to do with me?" he asked again of the silent cowboy. "Depends on my bunkie thar," replied the latter sternly. "Mebbe string you up to the nearest cocoanut palm." "It'd be murder!" whined Hawksley, now thoroughly cowed and frightened. "I was within my rights." "Thar ain't no rights for skunks," growled Broncho, his eyes watching the efforts to restore the senseless man with but ill-concealed anxiety. At last Jack opened his eyes and gasped faintly, "Water! water!" The half of a cocoanut, full of the creamy juice, was thrust to his lips. He drained this with a sigh of satisfaction and a hoarse murmur of, "I'll soon be all right, boys."