They could hear the bellowing of Big Aleck, beseeching aid. They advanced cautiously, to spy out what had happened and saw him rolling from side to side, striving to rise, falling back. The woman was nowhere visible. "Who done it, Aleck?" demanded the man next in command, when he had ventured closer. "Did she shoot you?" Aleck groaned as he rolled over, his face upward. A nod showed his crippled shoulder. His other hand Big Aleck feebly placed upon his hip. They bent over him. "By God, she got you fair that time!" said one investigator. "She's plugged you twice. She wasn't blind. Where did she go?" "I don't know where--I heard her run. God, that leg! What will I do? I can't stay here alone!" "I tell you, you'll have to! If that girl's not blind she'll get out and give this snap away." "But you can take me out with you, fellers. I can ride." Aleck was pleading, his face gray with pain. "Worst thing we could do, either for you or for us," replied the other, coldly. "If we got you down to the settlements what could we say? If you was shot once we could call it an accident, but shot twice, and once through the hip from behind--how would that be explained, I'd like to know? Folks would begin to ask too many questions. Besides, they'd ask where that girl was. Then there's the fires you set. No, sir, you stay right here. We other fellers'll get out of here as fast as we can." "And leave me here?" The terror in Big Aleck's voice had been piteous for any men but these. "Listen! Before midnight I'll be at the Company dam. I'll tell that new doctor there's been an accident up here in the timber camp. I'll tell him to come up here to-morrow morning sure. When he gets here, you tell him how the accident happened. It's up to you, then. You'll have to pay him pretty well, of course." "And that reminds me," he went on, "we fellers has got to have the funds, Aleck. We'll need money more'n you will now. Here!" He stooped over and began to feel in Aleck's coat, drew out a heavy wallet, and began to transfer the bills to his own pocket. "I'll leave you a hundred and fifty. That's enough," said he. "No telling what we fellers'll have to do before we get out of this. Your getting shot here is apt to blow the whole thing. Did she take the gun away with her?" Aleck groaned and rolled his head. "I don't know," he said. Jim Denny was the new leader of the brigand party. "Hell's bells!" said he, impatiently now. "We can't be fooling around--this don't look good to me. Noon to-morrow, anyways, the Doctor ought to be here. As for us, we got to beat it now." The wolf pack knew no mercy nor unselfishness. Aleck got no more attention from them. There were two cars beside the one which had brought Aleck and Mary Warren up the day before. This last one they left, seeing that the tire was in bad condition. Not one of them turned to say good-by to Aleck as he lay in the tent where he had been dragged.