At the sound of the shot, Wolfe looked up quickly. He saw the gaunt old man go tottering to his feet, saw Tot standing with her hands clutching at her calico dress below her throat; but because of the creek's dashing he did not hear the Prophet's agonized cry. Wolfe dismounted, fastened his horse's reins to a sapling, and hurried up the rocky steep. The young woman and her grandparent had come down to where Mayfield lay groaning. "He hain't dead," said Tot. "He's jest bad hurt. And you'd shore better take him along to town with ye, Little Buck, and jail him, ef ye don't want to be ambushed some other time." Poor old Grandpap Singleton fell to his knees beside the man he had shot. "He hain't dead!" he rejoiced. "He hain't dead!" His hands were clasped against his hollow breast. His joy was even more pathetic than his grief had been before it. Wolfe understood fully. He touched the now quiet figure on the ground with the toe of his boot. "Get up!" he ordered. Mayfield rose, his right arm hanging limp at his side. Wolfe ripped the shirtsleeve from the injured member, folded one of his own white handkerchiefs and placed it over the wound, and used the torn-out sleeve for a bandage. Mayfield, who was fast recovering from his fit of weakness, watched every move of the deft, strong fingers with old hatred in his lusterless, uncanny eyes. [Illustration] The first-aid work was barely finished when the high-pitched voice of Granny Wolfe came from a point a few rods above: "La, la, la! And so ye got him, durn him, did ye, Grandpap Bill Singleton!" She limped down to them, her little dog, Wag, happy at her heels. "Ye needn't to mind a-tellin' me about it, Bill Singleton," she chattered, "a-cause I already know, me a-bein' a good guesser. And so the rawzum-chawin' devil's pup--was a goin' to layway Little Buck, was he? You, Cat-Eye Mayfield, quit that a-lookin' at me like as ef ye could bite my whole head off." She turned toward her grandson, who greeted her gravely. "I tried to find you before I left," he said, and then told her of his father's change of heart. "Consarn his old fool hide!" the old woman exploded. Wolfe picked up Mayfield's rifle, threw the loaded cartridge out of the chamber, and let the hammer down carefully. Then he held the weapon out toward Tot Singleton. "Take that home with you," he requested. "Mayfield can get it when he comes back." Tot didn't take the rifle. Her lower lip began to quiver, and she looked away. "But I cain't never go home no more, Little Buck," she murmured. "You can't go home!" he exclaimed in amazement. She told him haltingly why. A very little smile curled Wolfe's mouth at the corners. "So you, too, are an outcast," he said, half-sympathetically, half-resentfully. "But don't feel so badly about it! We always have our compensations, little girl. I wonder if--will you go along with me, Tot?" She answered simply, "I'd go anywhar with you."