He plunged down into the creek and came up with his cap filled with water, and, kneeling, dashed it over the unconscious man's face--and over Ann's hovering hands as well. "It's probably only a faint. The ground's soft--he's had the breath knocked out of him, that's all." He appeared to be right, for Garvin Westmore stirred, and, when Ann had wiped the wet from his face, looked at the two with full consciousness; at Ann's frightened face and her companion's questioning eyes. "He threw me--the damned brute." "Lucky if you've broken no bones," the other returned. "See if you can stand." Ann moved aside and he helped Garvin to his feet, watching him critically as he stretched his arms and felt his body. "All right?" he asked. "I think so." "You're lucky." "Lucky, am I--" Garvin said through his teeth. Then his voice rose. "Look--!" Ann looked, and caught her breath. The horse had at last struggled up and stood quivering, nostrils wide and head bent, nosing the leg that hung limp. He had essayed a step, then stopped, grown suddenly moist. There was something very human in the eyes he lifted to the two men when they came to him, and even under their handling he shifted only a little. Then they drew back, and their voices came sharply to Ann as she stood with hand pressed to her lips and eyes wide with pity. "Broken, Garvin--and the shoulder strained--I've seen them like that." "He went down in that rabbit-hole, Baird!" "Yep--poor beast." "What's to be done?" Garvin's voice was strained. "Nothing--he's done for." There was silence for a moment and Ann saw that the color had flamed in Garvin's white face. He was suddenly as violently a-quiver as the suffering animal, curiously and tensely excited. He glanced behind him, then to either side, an uncertain look that passed over Ann and his surroundings, unseeing and yet furtive. Then he took a step backward, and the hand that had gone to his hip-pocket was swiftly upflung. Ann's shriek rang out almost simultaneously with the shot, at one with the leaden fall of the horse and the sharp echo sent back from the Mine Banks and the chattering lift of the birds in the woods. A crow cawed wildly as it rose; all about was the stir of startled and scurrying things. Baird had whirled to look at Ann, who stood bent over and with arm hiding her face, and his angry exclamation were the first words spoken: "God, Garvin, are you mad? What a thing to do--before her!" He strode to Ann and touched her shaking shoulder. "Come away," he said with a note of shame. "The idea of his doing such a thing before a girl! His fall must have knocked the sense out of him!"