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 between him and themselves again. There they lurked, somebody cracking away at him every time he moved a bale of hay.

Dunham felt the numbness going out of his arm, which began to tingle to the ends of his fingers with the increasing pain of his wound. He reloaded his gun and worked fast to make himself secure while his strength lasted, arranging hay bales to give him command of both doors, only one of which was open.

Examination of his wound disclosed that the bullet had passed cleanly through his shoulder about opposite his armpit. From the burn of it inside him he believed it must have nipped the lung. It was bleeding scandalously, he thought, for such a little wound, and it was in such an awkward place there didn't appear to be a thing he could do to help. But with teeth and sound hand he tied the blue handkerchief that he wore around his neck as tightly as he could draw it, under his arm and over the wound, hoping the compression might assist nature to some degree in shutting off the blood.

That was all he could do, and he realized it was not much. Having done it, he sat on a bale of hay, well protected behind his bulwark, to try to figure out, as he put it to himself, exac'ly where he was at.