“For,” she added, “he came here early this morning, after Mr. Taylor left, and I sent him to the big house to get some things for me.” But Parsons had not seen Mullarky. And at last, when the morning was nearly gone, and Marion saw a horse-drawn vehicle approaching the Arrow from the direction of Dawes, she ran out, thinking Ben Mullarky had brought her “things” in his buckboard. But it was not Ben who was coming, but Mrs. Mullarky. The lady’s face was very white and serious, and when the girl came close and she saw the look on the good woman’s face, she halted in her tracks and stood rigid, her own face paling. “Why, Mrs. Mullarky, what has happened?” “Enough, deary.” Mrs. Mullarky waved an eloquent hand toward the rear of the buckboard, and slowly approaching, the girl saw the huddled figure lying there, swathed in quilts. She drew her breath sharply, and with pallid face, swaying a little, she walked to the rear of the buckboard and stood, holding hard to the rim of a wheel, looking down at Taylor’s face with its closed eyes and its ghastly color. She must have screamed, then, for she felt Mrs. Mullarky’s arms around her, and she heard the lady’s voice, saying: “Don’t, deary; he ain’t dead, yet—an’ he won’t die—we won’t let him die.” She stood there by the buckboard for a time—until Mrs. Mullarky, running to one of the outbuildings, returned with Bud Hemmingway. Then, nerved to the ordeal by Bud’s businesslike methods, and the awful profanity that gushed from his clenched teeth, she helped them carry Taylor into the house. They took Taylor into his own room and laid him on the bed; a long, limp figure, pitifully shattered, lying very white and still. The girl stayed in the room while Mrs. Mullarky and Bud ran hither and thither getting water, cloths, stimulants, and other indispensable articles. And during one of their absences the girl knelt beside the bed, and resting her head close to Taylor’s—with her hands stroking his blackened face—she whispered: “O Lord, save him—save him for—for me!” CHAPTER XXII—LOOKING FOR TROUBLE Before night the Arrow outfit, led by Bothwell, the range boss, came into the ranchhouse. For the news had reached them—after the manner in which all news travels in the cow-country—by word of mouth—and they had come in—all those who could be spared—to determine the truth of the rumor. There were fifteen of them, rugged, capable-looking fellows; and despite the doctor’s objections, they filed singly, though noiselessly, into Taylor’s room and silently looked down upon their “boss.” Marion, watching them from a corner of the room, noted their quick gulps of pity, their grim faces, the savage gleams that came into their eyes, and she knew they were thinking of vengeance upon the men who had wrought the injury to their employer.