It was his watch, and close beside it lay
his leather wallet. What money he had carried in the pocketbook was
untouched, but his personal cards and half a dozen papers that it had
contained were gone.
He looked at the time. The hour hand pointed to four. Was it possible
that he had been unconscious for more than six hours? He had left Jean
on the mountain top soon after nightfall--it was not later than nine
o'clock when he had seen Meleese. Seven hours! Again he lifted his hands
to his head. His hair was stiff and matted with blood. It had congealed
thickly on his cheek and neck and had soaked the top of his coat. He had
bled a great deal, so much that he wondered he was alive, and yet during
those hours his captors had given him no assistance, had not even bound
a cloth about his head.
Did they believe that the shot had killed him, that he was already dead
when they flung him into the dungeon? Or was this only one other
instance of the barbaric brutishness of those who so insistently sought
his life? The fighting blood rose in him with returning strength. If
they had left him a weapon, even the small knife they had taken from
his pocket, he would still make an effort to settle a last score or two.
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