In the labor of watching and nursing it seemed to Gale that two days and two nights slipped by like a few hours.  During that time the Indian recovered from his injury, and became capable of performing all except heavy tasks.  Then Gale succumbed to weariness.  After his much-needed rest he relieved Mercedes of the care and watch over Thorne which, up to that time, she had absolutely refused to relinquish.  The cavalryman had high fever, and Gale feared he had developed blood poisoning.  He required constant attention.  His condition slowly grew worse, and there came a day which Gale thought surely was the end.  But that day passed, and the night, and the next day, and Thorne lived on, ghastly, stricken, raving.  Mercedes hung over him with jealous, passionate care and did all that could have been humanly done for a man.  She grew wan, absorbed, silent.  But suddenly, and to Gale’s amaze and thanksgiving, there came an abatement of Thorne’s fever.  With it some of the heat and redness of the inflamed wound disappeared.  Next morning he was conscious, and Gale grasped some of the hope that Mercedes had never abandoned.  He forced her to rest while he attended to Thorne.  That day he saw that the crisis was past.  Recovery for Thorne was now possible, and would perhaps depend entirely upon the care he received.

Jim Lash’s wound healed without any aggravating symptoms.  It would be only a matter of time until he had the use of his leg again.  All these days, however, there was little apparent change in Ladd’s condition unless it was that he seemed to fade away as he lingered.  At first his wounds remained open; they bled a little all the time outwardly, perhaps internally also; the blood did not seem to clot, and so the bullet holes did not close.  Then Yaqui asked for the care of Ladd.  Gale yielded it with opposing thoughts—­that Ladd would waste slowly away till life ceased, and that there never was any telling what might lie in the power of this strange Indian.  Yaqui absented himself from camp for a while, and when he returned he carried the roots and leaves of desert plants unknown to Gale.  From these the Indian brewed an ointment.  Then he stripped the bandages from Ladd and applied the mixture to his wounds.  That done, he let him lie with the wounds exposed to the air, at night covering him.  Next day he again exposed the wounds to the warm, dry air.  Slowly they closed, and Ladd ceased to bleed externally.

Days passed and grew into what Gale imagined must have been weeks.  Yaqui recovered fully.  Jim Lash began to move about on a crutch; he shared the Indian’s watch over Ladd.  Thorne lay haggard, emaciated ghost of his rugged self, but with life in the eyes that turned always toward Mercedes.  Ladd lingered and lingered.  The life seemingly would not leave his bullet-pierced body.  He faded, withered, shrunk till he was almost a skeleton.  He knew those who worked and watched over him, but