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Page 22
There was no response.
Hi stood still for a moment trying to recall where he had seen the
flash of her weapon.
"It must have been about where I am standing now. I--"
Hi Lang suddenly disappeared from sight. The guide had fallen into
a crevice in the rocks, a crevice that had been hidden by dwarf
shrubs and mountain grass, and it seemed a long way to the bottom.
Hi bumped his way to the bottom at the expense of some bruises and
a badly ruffled temper.
"Hulloa!" he exclaimed. "What's this?"
He had touched something that was not rock--something that felt
like a human form. The guide struck a match and peered down at
Grace Harlowe, who lay face down at the bottom, and, as he turned
her face up to the light, he saw flecks of blood on it.
"The hound! He hit her! I'll kill him for that, whoever he may
be!"
Placing a hand over Grace's heart, Hi Lang found that she was
alive.
"Thank God for that! Give me the luck to meet the critter that did
this thing," breathed the desert guide.
Hi lifted the unconscious Overland girl in his arms and began
scrambling toward the top of the big crevice. Finding that he
could not make it without freeing one hand, he slipped an arm
about Grace's waist, holding her with it while he used his free
hand to assist him in climbing to the top. He reached it a little
out of breath.
Without giving a thought now to the peril he was inviting by
showing himself so boldly, Hi stepped out into the open space,
raised his revolver and fired three shots into the air, the signal
of recall for Lieutenant Wingate. Then, gathering Grace in his
arms, he started for the camp in long strides, raging silently at
the ruffian who had tried to kill her.
Elfreda, who was on watch just outside of their camp, heard him
coming and challenged.
"It's Hi. I've got Mrs. Gray."
"Is--is she hurt?" questioned Elfreda more calmly than she felt.
"She's been shot, but she's alive."
Miss Briggs ran to meet the guide, and, walking along at his side,
she placed a finger on Grace's pulse and held it there until they
reached the camp. Nora, Anne and Emma paled as they caught sight
of the limp figure in Hi Lang's arms.
"Who shot her!" asked Elfreda.
"The critter who tried to kill Ping, I suppose."
"Oh, this is terrible!" wailed Emma.
"Get water," directed Miss Briggs, after the guide had placed her
where the light from the fire would shine in her face.
Nora fetched water from the spring near which the camp had been
pitched, and Elfreda bathed the wound that she found on Grace's
head. Elfreda's hospital training during the war, in France, had
already stood her in good stead on several occasions since her
return from Europe.
"This is not a gunshot wound," she announced after a critical
examination of the patient's head.
"Not--not a gunshot--" exclaimed Hi.
"No. It is a severe scalp wound, however."
"What made it, then?" demanded the guide.
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