The pain of his wounds after the fall was excruciating. His

head whirled dizzily. He knew that he was dying, and then all

went black.

When consciousness returned to the mucker it was daylight.

The sky above shone through the ragged hole that his falling

body had broken in the pit's covering the night before.

"Gee!" muttered the mucker; "and I thought that I was

dead!"

His wounds had ceased to bleed, but he was very weak and

stiff and sore.

"I guess I'm too tough to croak!" he thought.

He wondered if the two men would reach Barbara in

safety. He hoped so. Mallory loved her, and he was sure that

Barbara had loved Mallory. He wanted her to be happy. No

thought of jealousy entered his mind. Mallory was her kind.

Mallory "belonged." He didn't. He was a mucker. How would

he have looked training with her bunch. She would have been

ashamed of him, and he couldn't have stood that. No, it was

better as it had turned out. He'd squared himself for the beast

he'd been to her, and he'd squared himself with Mallory, too.

At least they'd have only decent thoughts of him, dead; but

alive, that would be an entirely different thing. He would be in

the way. He would be a constant embarrassment to them all,

for they would feel that they'd have to be nice to him in

return for what he had done for them. The thought made the

mucker sick.

"I'd rather croak," he murmured.

But he didn't "croak"--instead, he waxed stronger, and

toward evening the pangs of hunger and thirst drove him to

consider means for escaping from his hiding place, and searching

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