"Paul! Paul! My darling!" A ringing call broke from Marguerite's lips and she rushed down the hill at a pace which even Mead's running strides could barely equal. The boy heard her cry, turned, swayed on trembling legs, and fell to the ground. She snatched the child to her breast and pressed her face to his. He smiled faintly and wearily, and his parched, cracked lips whispered, "some drink!" and then his eyes closed and his head fell back upon her arm. The gladness in her face froze into terror and she turned to Mead in despairing appeal. "Is he dead?" she whispered. The man bent one ear to the child's heart. "No, he is not dead, nor dying. His heart seems to be beating naturally, but feebly. If we only had some water!" She held the child toward him, speaking rapidly: "Take him in your arms and run to where the others are. Doctor Long is there, and somebody will have water." He looked at her anxiously. "But you?" he exclaimed. She answered with a sharp insistence in her tones, leaning toward him, the words flying from her lips: "Take him and run, run! Never mind me. I will come behind you. Go, go quickly!" He cradled the unconscious child in his arms, running with long strides up hill and down, aiming a straight course toward the bulk of the searching party, which he could see from the hilltops, a multitude of moving dots straggling back into the hills where he and Marguerite had first followed the footprints. As he ran, his mind went back over the winding trail they had followed, and he calculated that the child had traveled not less than a dozen miles since sunset of the night before. He glanced over the hills at the crowds beyond and thought it must be some four or five miles to the nearest one. He saw a single horseman off to his left who seemed much nearer, but he decided it would be safer to run straight for the greater number, lest the man might turn about and ride away without seeing him. But the horseman presently came in his direction and soon Mead saw that the man was looking toward him. He waved his hat and halloed, and the man evidently saw and understood, for he spurred his horse into a gallop. As he came nearer Mead thought there was something familiar in his attitude and the outline of his body. But he did not look closely, for he was running through a growth of prickly pear cactus and needed to watch his footsteps. Scarcely more than two hundred yards separated them when the horseman leaned forward in his saddle, studying keenly the figure of the man on foot. A look of cruel, snarling triumph flashed over his face and a Spanish oath broke from his lips. He whipped out a revolver and leveled it at the running man with the child in his arms. Mead had been looking at the ground, choosing his course, and then had glanced at Paul's face for a moment. When he raised his eyes again he saw the shining muzzle of a revolver pointed at his breast and above it the savage, revengeful, triumphant face of Antone Colorow.