It may have been the much that I had talked, or the infernal jolting of my mule, but I was losing blood again, and as we were on the point of riding forward my senses swam, so that I cried out; and but for her prompt assistance I might have rolled headlong from my saddle.
As it was, she caught me about the waist as any mother might have done her son.

"What ails you ?" she inquired, her newly-aroused anxiety contrasting sharply with her joyous cry of a moment earlier.

"Are you faint, my friend ?" It needed no confession on my part.

My condition was all too plain as I leaned against her frail body for support.
"It is my wound," I gasped.

Then I set my teeth in anguish.