“Seven, now!” he thought miserably, in comprehension of the whole business as ridicule in human savagery.  “They won’t trouble us again immediately.  They will wait on darkness and thirst,” he concluded; and called, as he turned back, to Firio:  “It worked like a charm, O son of the sun!  They could not fire at all straight with your bullets flying about their heads, disturbing their—­” His speech ended at sight of Prather, half rolling, half tumbling down the slope, his hands over his face, while he uttered a prolonged moan.

“Bullet hit a rock under sand!” said Firio, as Jack hastened to assist Prather, who had come to a halt at the very bottom of the arroyo and lay gasping on his side.  Jack took hold of Prather’s wrists to draw his hands away from the wound.

“My God!  Out here, like a rat in a trap!” Prather groaned.  “When I have all life before me!  In sight of millions and power—­a rat in a trap out on this damnable desert, as if I were of no more account than a rancher!”

“Let me see!” said Jack; for Prather was holding his hands tight against his face, as if he feared that all the blood in his body would pour out if he removed them.  “Let me see!  Maybe it is not so bad!”

Prather let his hands drop and the right one which was over the cheek with the mole was splashed red between the fingers.  On the cheek was a raw spot, from which ran a slight trickle.  The mole had gone.  A splinter of rock, or perhaps a bullet, with its jacket split, ricocheting sidewise, had torn it clean from the flesh.

“Not at all dangerous!” said Jack.

“No?” exclaimed Prather, in utter relief.

“It will heal in a fortnight!”

A small medicine case was among the regular supplies that were always packed on that omnibus of a burro, Jag Ear.  While Jack was bandaging the wound, Firio, who kept watch, had no news to report.

“Nothing matters!  They will get us, anyway!” Prather moaned.  The shock of being hit had quite finished any pretence at concealing his mortal fear of the outcome.

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that!  We already have them down to seven!” said Jack encouragingly, as he made a pillow of a blanket and bade Prather rest his head on it.

But he knew well that they were a seven who had learned wisdom from the fate of their comrades.  From Nogales, Leddy must have heard of the loss of two horses.  At best, but one of the beleaguered three had any means of escape.  Leddy could well afford to curb his impatience as he camped comfortably by the water-hole, while his own horses grazed.

The sun was still above the western ridge in the effulgence of its adieu for the day.  Jack was on his knee, with the broad, level glare full on him, looking at Prather, who was in the shadow; and his reflections were mixed with that pity which one feels toward another who is lame or blind or suffers for the want of any sense or faculty that is born to the average human being.  For a man of true courage rarely sees a coward as anything but a man ailing; he is grateful for nature’s kindness to himself.  And the spark of John Wingfield, Knight, skipping generations before it settled on a descendant, had not chosen John Prather for its favor.  The ancestor was all Jack’s.