He walked beside the animal to town, and never had two miles
seemed to him so far. With one hand he steadied the helpless body that
lay like a sack of flour balanced in the trough of the saddle.
Kusiak at last lay below him, and when he descended the hill to the
suburbs almost the first house was the one where the Pagets lived.
Elliot threw the body across his shoulder and walked up the walk to the
porch. He kicked upon the door with his foot. Sheba answered the knock,
and at sight of what he carried the color faded from her face.
"Macdonald has been hurt--badly," he explained quickly.
"This way," the girl cried, and led him to her own room, hurrying in
advance to throw back the bedclothes.
"Get Diane--and a doctor," ordered Gordon after he had laid the
unconscious man on the white sheet.
While he and Diane undressed the mine-owner Sheba got a doctor on the
telephone. The wounded man opened his eyes after a long time, but there
was in them the glaze of delirium. He recognized none of them. He did
not know that he was in the house of Peter Paget, that Diane and Sheba
and his rival were fighting with the help of the doctor to push back
the death that was crowding close upon him.
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