"He's alive!...I've got to stand here and watch him die. And I
shot an unarmed man."
Shrinkingly Venters removed the rider's wide sombrero and the
black cloth mask. This action disclosed bright chestnut hair,
inclined to curl, and a white, youthful face. Along the lower
line of cheek and jaw was a clear demarcation, where the brown of
tanned skin met the white that had been hidden from the sun.
"Oh, he's only a boy!...What! Can he be Oldring's Masked Rider?"
The boy showed signs of returning consciousness. He stirred; his
lips moved; a small brown hand clenched in his blouse.
Venters knelt with a gathering horror of his deed. His bullet had
entered the rider's right breast, high up to the shoulder. With
hands that shook, Venters untied a black scarf and ripped open
the blood-wet blouse.
First he saw a gaping hole, dark red against a whiteness of skin,
from which welled a slender red stream. Then the graceful,
beautiful swell of a woman's breast!
"A woman!" he cried. "A girl!...I've killed a girl!"
She suddenly opened eyes that transfixed Venters. They were
fathomless blue. Consciousness of death was there, a blended
terror and pain, but no consciousness of sight. She did not see
Venters. She stared into the unknown.
Then came a spasm of vitality. She writhed in a torture of
reviving strength, and in her convulsions she almost tore from
Ventner's grasp.
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