to keep them from shootin’ me deep, but they was slingin’ lead close all the time.  I used up all the rifle shells, an’ en I went after them.  Mebbe you heard.  It was then I got hit.  Had to use up every shell in my own gun, an’ they did, too, as I seen.  Rustlers an’ Mormons, Jane!  An’ now I’m packin’ five bullet holes in my carcass, an’ guns without shells.  Hurry, now.”

He unstrapped the saddle-bags from the burros, slipped the saddles and let them lie, turned the burros loose, and, calling the dogs, led the way through stones and cedars to an open where two horses stood.

“Jane, are you strong?” he asked.

“I think so.  I’m not tired,” Jane replied.

“I don’t mean that way.  Can you bear up?”

“I think I can bear anything.”

“I reckon you look a little cold an’ thick.  So I’m preparin’ you.”

“For what?”

“I didn’t tell you why I jest had to go after them fellers.  I couldn’t tell you.  I believe you’d have died.  But I can tell you now—­if you’ll bear up under a shock?”

“Go on, my friend.”

“I’ve got little Fay!  Alive—­bad hurt—­but she’ll live!”

Jane Withersteen’s dead-locked feeling, rent by Lassiter’s deep, quivering voice, leaped into an agony of sensitive life.

“Here,” he added, and showed her where little Fay lay on the grass.

Unable to speak, unable to stand, Jane dropped on her knees.  By that long, beautiful golden hair Jane recognized the beloved Fay.  But Fay’s loveliness was gone.  Her face was drawn and looked old with grief.  But she was not dead—­her heart beat—­and Jane Withersteen gathered strength and lived again.

“You see I jest had to go after Fay,” Lassiter was saying, as he knelt to bathe her little pale face.  “But I reckon I don’t want no more choices like the one I had to make.  There was a crippled feller in that bunch, Jane.  Mebbe Venters crippled him.  Anyway, that’s why they were holding up here.  I seen little Fay first thing, en’ was hard put to it to figure out a way to get her.  An’ I wanted hosses, too.  I had to take chances.  So I crawled close to their camp.  One feller jumped a hoss with little Fay, an’ when I shot him, of course she dropped.  She’s stunned an’ bruised—­she fell right on her head.  Jane, she’s comin’ to!  She ain’t bad hurt!”

Fay’s long lashes fluttered; her eyes opened.  At first they seemed glazed over.  They looked dazed by pain.  Then they quickened, darkened, to shine with intelligence—­bewilderment—­memory—­and sudden wonderful joy.

“Muvver—­Jane!” she whispered.

“Oh, little Fay, little Fay!” cried Jane, lifting, clasping the child to her.

“Now, we’ve got to rustle!” said Lassiter, in grim coolness.  “Jane, look down the Pass!”

Across the mounds of rock and sage Jane caught sight of a band of riders filing out of the narrow neck of the Pass; and in the lead was a white horse, which, even at a distance of a mile or more, she knew.