They laid Jerry on Blossom's bed, its coverings magically smoothed into comfort by her flying hands, and Joe Sanders once more pressed his pocket flask to the white lips. The girl, buoyed up, beyond her strength, by the moment's need and the mettle of her blood, swiftly and capably eased the posture of the wounded man, loosened his heavy boots and rushed from the room to prepare fresh bandages. The stunning impact of despair would come later. Now every fighting chance must be preserved to him. While she was still out of the room, Henderson's eyes opened in a fluttering and precarious consciousness, to find other eyes fixed on them with flaming intensity. The basilisk gaze was fabulously reputed to bring death, but Turner Stacy was reversing its hypnotism to compel life. "Where--am I?" whispered Jerry; and the answer was as peremptory as predestination. "Ye're at Blossom's house--ter git married--an,' by God, ye've got ter last thet long. She's got ter believe ye come of yore own free will--see thet she does!" The half-insensible eyes ranged vaguely about the place. The weak fingers plucked absently at the coverlet, and then essayed a gesture. The promoter seemed rallying his failing faculties for a supreme effort though his voice was hardly audible. "But--Stacy--you don't--under--stand." Bear Cat brought his face close; a face with belligerently out-thrust chin and fiercely narrowed eyes. Henderson must consent before Blossom returned to divine with her quick intuition that her dying lover balked in the shadow of death. "Don't explain nothin' ter me. Save yore breath ter say 'I will.' Thet's all ye hev need ter utter now--an' hits need enough." In his overwrought singleness of purpose Turner forgot that this man was beyond any force of threat or coercion. As he spoke so dictatorially he believed himself, too, to be facing death with equal certainty, though more slowly, and what he had sworn to do must first be done. Yet there was such an inescapable compulsion in the ernest fixity of his pale face and burning eyes that the outstretched figure felt its own declining will merged and conquered. "Hit's ther only decent thing thet's left fer ye ter do," went on the strained but inflexible voice. "Ye took her heart fer yore own--an' broke hit. Ye've got ter let her have yore name an' ther consolation of believin' thet ye came ter her ... honest, fightin' back black death hitself!" Sometimes between sleep and waking come fugitive thoughts that seem crystal-clear, but that elude definite memory. Such a process enacted itself in the mind of the dying man. Doubt and complications were dissolved into simplicity--and acquiescence. Faintly he nodded his head and even tried to hold out his hand to be shaken. Perhaps Bear Cat was too excited to recognize that proffer of amenity. Possibly his own bitterness was yet too black for forgiveness--at all events he turned away without response to seek out Joel Fulkerson, who had disappeared.