Gale rose from his examination with a sharp breaking of his cold mood.  While there was life in Thorne and Ladd there was hope for them.  Then he faced his problem, and his decision was instant.

He awoke Mercedes.  How wondering, wistful, beautiful was that first opening flash of her eyes!  Then the dark, troubled thought came.  Swiftly she sat up.

“Mercedes—­come.  Are you all right?  Laddy is alive Thorne’s not —­not so bad.  But we’ve got a job on our hands!  You must help me.”

She bent over Thorne and laid her hands on his hot face.  Then she rose—­a woman such as he had imagined she might be in an hour of trial.

Gale took up Ladd as carefully and gently as possible.

“Mercedes, bring what you can carry and follow me,” he said.  Then, motioning for Yaqui to remain there, he turned down the slope with Ladd in his arms.

Neither pausing nor making a misstep nor conscious of great effort, Gale carried the wounded man down into the arroyo.  Mercedes kept at his heels, light, supple, lithe as a panther.  He left her with Ladd and went back.  When he had started off with Thorne in his arms he felt the tax on his strength.  Surely and swiftly, however, he bore the cavalryman down the trail to lay him beside Ladd.  Again he started back, and when he began to mount the steep lava steps he was hot, wet, breathing hard.  As he reached the scene of that night’s camp a voice greeted him.  Jim Lash was sitting up.

“Hello, Dick.  I woke some late this mornin’.  Where’s Laddy?  Dick, you ain’t a-goin’ to say—­”

“Laddy’s alive—­that’s about all,” replied Dick.

“Where’s Thorne an’ Mercedes?  Look here, man.  I reckon you ain’t packin’ this crippled outfit down that awful trail?”

“Had to, Jim.  An hour’s sun—­would kill—­both Laddy and Thorne.  Come on now.”

For once Jim Lash’s cool good nature and careless indifference gave precedence to amaze and concern.

“Always knew you was a husky chap.  But, Dick, you’re no hoss!  Get me a crutch an’ give me a lift on one side.”

“Come on,” replied Gale.  “I’ve no time to monkey.”

He lifted the ranger, called to Yaqui to follow with some of the camp outfit, and once more essayed the steep descent.  Jim Lash was the heaviest man of the three, and Gale’s strength was put to enormous strain to carry him on that broken trail.  Nevertheless, Gale went down, down, walking swiftly and surely over the bad places; and at last he staggered into the arroyo with bursting heart and red-blinded eyes.  When he had recovered he made a final trip up the slope for the camp effects which Yaqui had been unable to carry.

Then he drew Jim and Mercedes and Yaqui, also, into an earnest discussion of ways and means whereby to fight for the life of Thorne.  Ladd’s case Gale now considered hopeless, though he meant to fight for him, too, as long as he breathed.