In an agony of alarm I dragged him aside and rested his head on my sheepskin coat. I was afraid at first his tremendous effort had ruptured some blood vessel and that he would be beyond the reach of my rough-and-ready attentions there in the wilderness. Poyning had now got his senses fully back, and together we felt Philipson's heart--which was beating weak and slow--and chafed his wrists and plied him with brandy from Poyning's flask; and after some time it seemed the life was flickering up in him again. The blood had dried quickly on his lip, and the faintest tinge of red was coming back into his face. In my travels at one time and another I've seen a good deal of woundings and miscellaneous injuries to the human frame, yet I couldn't put down Philipson's unconsciousness to any definite physical hurt. Rather he seemed to me to display the sort of symptoms you might expect from a man in an absolute nervous prostration. At last, to our unspeakable relief, he stirred, sat up, and stared round him. 'Eh? Oh, yes, I remember,' he muttered. 'The yak-herd.' Poyning was on his knees beside him. 'Philipson,' he said hoarsely, 'you pulled me out of that at your own life's risk. I shall not forget it. How do you feel now?' Philipson was struggling to his feet. 'It is nothing,' he said quietly. 'You would have done as much for either of us. But we really must be more careful in future. It was--' he glanced at the dead yak--'as much as I could do to hold that beast.' 'Good God, man,' I cried, 'it was amazing! Six ordinary men couldn't have held it!' Philipson gave me a queer enigmatic smile. 'Be just, Mirlees,' he said. 'Give the yak his due. See here.' He stooped over the great beast and pulled the clotted hair aside from its breast. 'If the brute had not received this injury I am much afraid he would have thrown me half way along the pass.' 'But your hands!' exclaimed Poyning, pointing to Philipson's bruised and blackened fingers and the blood that had oozed out from under every one of his ten nails. 'You must have put tremendous force into it! You must have the muscles of a Hercules!' Philipson's answer was to pull up his sleeves, revealing arms that were muscular and shapely, but a good deal smaller than those of many a professional athlete. 'If it were a question of muscle,' he said, 'even a badly hit yak would be too much for the hero you mention. But the good gods have given us other powers. I used mine to-day. Let us be thankful that I had them to use. Now for re-assembling the camp.'