He was troubled over the outcome of that treacherous assault. He felt that the shadow of the resultant tragedy was already stretching away from there like the penumbra of an eclipse which must soon engulf those homesteads on the river, and exact a terrible, blasting toll. Dalton was huddled there, his life wasting through the wound in his wrist, blood on his face from the blow that had laid him still. The dead man across the bed remained as he had fallen, his arms stretched out in empty supplication. There was a pathos in the fellow's pose that touched Macdonald with a pity which he knew to be undeserved. He had not meant to take his life away in that hasty shot, but since it had happened so, he knew that it had been his own deliverance. Macdonald stripped the garment back and looked at Dalton's hurt. There would be another one to take toll for in the cattlemen's list unless the drain of blood could be checked at once. Dalton moved, opening his eyes. It seemed unlikely that Dalton ever would sling a gun with that member again, if he should be so lucky, indeed, as to come through with his life. The bone was shattered, the hand hung limp, like a broken wing. Dalton sat up, yielding his arm to his enemy's ministrations, as silent and ungracious as a dog. In a little while Macdonald had done all that he could do, and with a hand under the hollow of Dalton's arm he lifted him to his feet. "Can you ride?" he asked. Dalton did not reply. He looked at the figure on the bed, and stood turning his eyes around the room in the manner of one stunned, and completely confounded by the failure of a scheme counted infallible. "You made a botch of this job, Dalton," Macdonald said. "The rest of your crowd's outside where Thorn dropped them--he snatched your gun from the floor and killed both of them." Dalton went weakly to the door, where he stood a moment, steadying himself with a hand on the jamb. Macdonald eased him from there to the gate, and brought the horses which the gang had hidden among the willows. "Tell Chadron to send a wagon up here after these dead men," Macdonald said, leading a horse to the gate. He helped the still silent Dalton into the saddle, where he sat weakly. The man seemed to be debating something to say to this unaccountably fortunate nester, who came untouched through all their attempts upon his life. But whatever it was that he cogitated he kept to himself, only turning his eyes back toward the house, where his two men lay on the ground. The face of one was turned upward. In the draining light of the spent day it looked as white as innocence. As Dalton drew his eyes away from the fearful evidence of his plan's miscarriage, the sound of hard riding came from the direction of the settlement up the river. Macdonald listened a moment as the sound grew. "That will be no friend of yours, Dalton. Get out of this!"