humour returned. 'Yet, if any other citizen had brought you here, the grave he would have shown with pride would have been that of a scoundrel who killed seven people--and he wasn't a doctor. The town hanged him, most justly; he was a fool--he should have taken a degree before indulging his appetite for blood.'
She did not smile. 'I don't like to hear you' joke about. your profession,' she said. 'Great soldiers, who use their lives to take life, are honoured, but a doctor, who devotes himself to saving life receives--what?'
'All that every human being wins in the end--that,' he said flippantly, and pointed to the nearest grave.
'You are not yourself to-day,' she reproved.
'That's the trouble--I am,' he replied cynically. 'Forgive me, Miss Maitland; I sometimes talk, and act, like an idiot. What I really wanted to tell you was that I am going away.'
The colour came into her cheeks and receded; she had suddenly realized what this man's absence would mean. It had begun in pity on her part for one who, still young and talented, was leading an aimless, sordid existence. A bed in a shabby hotel, meals at an eating-house, and many hours of every day in saloons; the tragedy of it shocked her. And now ... She tried to speak casually:
'Are you going for good?'
'For my own good, I hope,' he smiled. 'Would it matter?'
'I have not so many friends,' she told him, and there was a note in her voice which brought a gleam into his eyes.
'I expect to be away only some two or three weeks,' he said. 'Where, when, and why, I am not at liberty to tell even you. The town--if it troubles to ask--will be informed that I have gone East, and supply its own reason--a debauch.'
'But--you have been--'
'Abstemious lately? Precisely, and therefore the wiseacres will argue that a breaking-out was inevitable.' He saw the fear in her glance. 'No, it isn't that; if it were, I would stay here and be damned to them.'
She smiled again; this was the old Malachi, reckless, contemptuous, but likeable. They spoke only of trivialities on the way to Rainbow, but when parting, Malachi said, 'You will be glad when I return, Kate?'
'Yes--Philip,' she replied.
'That is all I need to know,' he murmured. 'I shall come back--sane.'
The same evening, the doctor visited the Parlour Saloon, as usual, but drank nothing. He left early, and some time later rapped at the door of the Cirole Dot ranch-house. Dover opened it, and conducted the visitor to the front room, where the rest of the party to go into the hills were assembled. Burke was also present, having taken his final instructions from theowner. After greetings had been exchanged, the doctor said: 'I enquired about those two twenties, Dan; they were paid by the bank to Trenton a week ago, but they could have changed hands more than once, so it doesn't prove much.'
'Mebbe it don't, but it shore looks like he'd got news of our drive an' hired some scallawags to bust it,' the rancher replied. 'That's my view, an' I'm holdin' it till I know different.'
'He wouldn't risk usin' his own men,' Burke contributed. 'I'm obliged, Doc. Got all you need in the way o' gear?' Dan went on, and receiving an affirmative nod, reached a bottle from a cupboard. 'We'll have just one li'l drink to success--it's the last liquor we'll see till we reach town again.'
'Leave me out, Dan,' Malachi said quietly.
'Me too; I don't use it,' Yorky echoed.
They all laughed at this, save Hunch, sitting in one corner, a big revolver thrust through his belt, and the great axe between his knees. He took the spirit handed to him, tipped it down his throat with a single gesture, and replaced the glass on the table. The action was that of an automaton, no expression showed in the blank face. The doctor was studying him curiously. Dover looked at the tall old grandfather clock.
'Gone midnight, Bill,' he said. 'Might as well be on the move.'
One by one they stole out, secured their mounts, and with Hunch astride a huge rawboned bay as guide, and Blister, leading a pack-horse loaded with supplies, bringing up the rear, they were swiftly merged in the murk. Silence reigned, but for the far-off cry of a questing coyote, and the plaintive hoot of an owl in trees they could not see. There was no moon, but the velvet sky was pricked with a myriad pin-points of light which only seemed to make the obscurity more profound. They moved slowly but surely, the leader appearing to know his way despite the darkness. So far, all had gone well.
But no one of them had seen the lurking man in the shadow of the corral, who, having watched their departure, ran to his hidden horse, and stooping low over its neck, followed them. The first news they had of him came as a finger of flame and the crack of a rifle. Blister reeled and would have fallen but for the quick clutch of the rider next him, Tiny. Sliding to the ground, the big cowboy lifted the hurt man down and laid him on the turf. Sudden raced in the direction from which the shot appeared to have come; nothing was to be seen, but he could hear the diminishing beat of hooves.
'On'y one of 'em,' he muttered, and returned to his friends.
Malachi, by the light of an improvised torch, was making an exclamation. 'Bullet struck the thigh and went through,' he said. 'Nice clean wound, but it will keep you on your back for some weeks, my lad. Give me some water.' A canteen provided this, and he washed and deftly bandaged the injury. 'He'll have to go back to the ranch.'
'Shore, one of us will take him,' Dover agreed.
'Aw, Boss, there ain't no need,' Blister protested. 'Doe's fixed my pin fine, an' I can make it; I ain't no kid. It's just too bad, missin' the trip, damn the luck.'
'I'll go tuck him in his li'l cot, an' catch you up,' Tiny offered.--
'You won't know the way, an' if that snipin' houn' has gone to wise up the Wagon-wheel, we can't afford to wait,' the rancher said perplexedly.
'I don't want no nussin', specially from a ham-handed freak,' Blister declared. 'Lift me into the saddle an' Paddy will be loadin' steak an' fried into me in less'n an hour.'
Tiny obeyed, adding solicitously, 'Rest all yore weight on the sound leg.'
'Awright, Solomon. Which rein do I pull if I wanta go left?'
'Neither of 'em; you just naturally jump off, pick the hoss up an' point him that way. Gwan--an' take care o' yoreself,' Tiny chuckled.
They watched him start, sitting straight up, but they could not see the lean brown hands clutching the saddle-horn, nor the clamped teeth as the throbbing pain of a damaged limb increased with every movement of his mount. Dan was anxious.
'Think he'll be all right, Phil?' he asked. 'I'd sooner lose the damn ranch than anythin' should happen to Blister.'
'He'll get there,' Malachi said confidently. 'He's got grit, that boy.' And added, under his breath, 'He makes me ashamed.'
Zeb Trenton was awakened early by the announcement thata visitor was waiting to see him on urgent business. Going down to his office, he found Garstone, Bundy, and the bearded man from the Bend, whom he greeted with a frown.
'Well, Lake, you've been long enough comin' to report,' he said aggressively.
'I'd nothin' but bad news to bring,' was the sullen answer. 'So you failed?'
'You can call it that. We stampeded the herd awright, but the beasts were too tired to run far or scatter enough. The punchers rounded 'em up again, an' they got one of us*Benito.'
Trenton shrugged impatiently--the passing from life of a Greaser was of little moment to him. 'Well?' he snapped.
'Havin' lost the cattle, we decided to try for the money on the back trip,' Lake proceeded. 'I went on to the Bend, figurin' to shadow Dover an' give the boys word. It didn't work out thataway.' He paused for a second or two, and then, in a voice which dripped venom, he told of the trick Sudden had played on him, and the subsequent abortive ambush. 'Two of our chaps was crippled, an' by the bastard who tied me up, a prisoner in a damned hotel bedroom for half a day--tall black-haired cowpunch, with a coupla guns. I'm a prompt payer, an' I meant to git that hombre, so I goes to the Circle Dot an' lays for a chance.'
'Don't tell me you downed him,' Bundy said. 'He's my meat.'
'He's still yores--if I don't see him first,' Lake replied. 'I didn't have an openin'--too many others around, but just after midnight I got on to somethin' I figured might interest you: Dover an' six more, with a pack animal,
