billy winch was the first to come to the bolted door. he hopped swiftly down the hall and beat at it with his fists. snarling and snapping, growling and finally whimpering, for the world like a dog, he cried out through his fierce mutterings:
"i'm the only man here that can save him if he ain't dead already. and if he is dead...."
he hurled himself bodily at the door; he jumped up at it and kicked it with his one heavy boot and, falling, rolled over and crawled to his foot and struck again.
the gallup house had become a vortex of violent excitement. it was shouted out that two men were dead, bruce standing shot by the new adventuress whom many had noted; jim taggart killed as he sought to put her under arrest. voices clashed and so did thoughts and purposes. men streamed out into the firelit road; they heard running feet marking the way the two fugitives had taken, and started headlong in pursuit, stumbling and falling in the dark, and for the first few moments making slight headway. others, gallup among them, were already with taggart, lifting him up and bearing him off to a bed. still others, hearkening to the strange word that a woman had killed bruce standing, were suddenly charged with the morbid curiosity to look upon this man dead. they found their way to the lighted window through which lynette brooke had escaped, and through it made their way into the room, until the small space was thick with their jostling bodies. all the while billy winch was beating at the door, yelling curses and, at last, when he heard them within, commanding and imploring to be let in. a man, stepping over
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timber-wolf's body, obeyed and billy winch hopped in. immediately he was down at his chief's side, squatting, after his own awkward fashion, upon a knee and balanced by a stub of a leg.
"he ain't dead!" billy winch's breath was expelled in a long, grateful sigh, which, before his lungs flattened, was choked by a nervous giggle. "i'm here, timber," he said softly. "you know me, old boy!"
"you damn little fool," was bruce standing's grunted answer. yet his voice was gentle and his eyes for one rare and fleeting instant as soft as a lover's.
billy winch, a man of resource, was now himself again, cool and past all silly sentiment. he turned from the fallen man to the crowding onlookers, and his eyes darkened with fury. he snatched up the rifle which standing had let fall, and, still kneeling, whipped it up over his head, brandishing it like a war club.
"out of this, every one of you!" he shouted at them. "give him air and give me room to work in, else i bash your brains out!"
had he been less in earnest some man of them might have found occasion to mark the absurdity of a cripple, squatting on the floor, waving a gun over his head and ordering them about. but as things were, no man appeared to glimpse this angle of it. one by one, with his eyes and the eyes of timber-wolf glaring at them, they went hastily out through the window.
"ought to get a doctor in a hurry," one of the retreating men was suggesting.
billy winch cursed him into silence. for winch held himself as good a physician and surgeon as any, having served in the veterinary capacity for a score of years and having a natural aptitude for treating bad cuts and gun wounds. further, he loved this timber-wolf; and beyond, with all his heart, billy winch distrusted and
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hated the breed of doctors. his stump of a leg he attributed to the profound ignorance drawn by the medical and surgical profession from their books of theories.
"you ain't even bad hurt, timber," he growled, as though disappointed and angered that he had been tricked into a show of affection and fright. his look accused standing of having wilfully deceived him. "must have been just the shock, what we call the impack, that knocked you over.... oh, lie still, can't you!"
but bruce standing gave him no heed, and continued in his attempt to draw himself up. while billy winch sat on the floor and looked up at him, the bigger man got slowly to his feet and stood leaning against the door.
"anyway, get over on the bed and lay down and i'll look you over. you're bleeding like a stuck pig. and you're as white as a clean rag."
bruce standing's face was already haggard and drawn, his mouth hard with pain. yet he ignored winch's command, and walked slowly, forcing his steps to be steady, to the one chair in the room. he sat down upon it heavily, straddling it as though it were a horse, facing the chair-back, and thus leaving his own back clearly proffered for winch's inspection. winch got up and hopped to him, railing at him the while for not lying down and obeying orders.
"help me get my coat off," commanded timber-wolf curtly. "then you can dig around and find out what we're up against."
men were still at the window, peering in.
"scatter!" commanded winch, waving the rifle at them. "and tell our boys to come here. dick ross and charley peters. they ain't far."
reluctantly the onlookers withdrew, some two or
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three of them to pause in the shadows when once out of eye-shot, and look back. but from now on winch disregarded them. he helped the wounded man off with his coat, yanked his shirts out from his belted waist, tore cloth freely when it was in his way, and thus uncovered the wound.
"she did that for you? that kid of a girl?"
"yes, damn her," muttered timber-wolf angrily, as billy winch's fingers, already scarlet, touched the wound. "turned my back a second ... she ought to have shot me dead ... either a rotten shot or in an awful hurry...."
"or scared to death!" winch's contempt was enormous. "that's the kind that does the most harm, the scared-stiffs that's always shooting the wrong time and the wrong man."
by now he had the shirts torn from top to bottom, and stood back, looking appraisingly at the broad, naked back and the small hole which a bullet had drilled. against the great area of flesh, as white as a girl's and smooth and clean with vigorous health, the smear of blood, itself red with that same perfection of health, gave the wound an appearance of ten times its real gravity. but winch was accustomed to blood, and knew that bruce standing could lose more of it than could most men and be little the worse for the loss. he diagnosed the case aloud, muttering thoughtfully:
"thirty-two caliber, to begin with; a thirty-two ain't nothing, timber. now, if it had been a forty-five, at that close-up range.... well, you see you was standing half-way slanting; it took you under that big shoulder muscle and drilled in and hit a rib, one of the high-up ones, and kept on going, sort of skirting round, skating on a rib, and popped out under your arm. lift it a bit? that's it. a clean hole. i tell you, either you
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sort of slipped and fell, or it was the impack that knocked you over.... the boys will be here any minute, and will scare up a bar of castile soap for me and something to make a regular poultice, what we calls a comprest, you know; i can make one out of most anything; remember sam true's thoroughbred stallion that got all cut to hell last fall, and i made him a comprest out of sawdust! you remind me," added winch thoughtfully, drawing off one of his hopping paces, to take in with an admiring and practised eye the now virtually nude torso, a white, smooth-running engine of power and endurance, "of a wild stallion mostly as much as a man, anyhow. a good smear of mustang liniment on that shoulder, a application, you know; and a dose of physic and a couple days' rest and careful diet, and you'll be as good as new...."
"what happened in the other room?" demanded standing, deaf to winch's mutterings. "after she went through the window?"
"she came busting in where deveril and i was, her eyes the size of two new dish pans. i put in new because they was shining like it too; i thought she'd seen the devil. she has a gun in her hand and she yells out, 'save me!' or something like that. and after her, doubled-up running, comes jim taggart, yelling at her: 'i got you for killing bruce standing!' and then that cool-headed, hot-hearted young baby devil of yours grabs the gun out of her hand and whangs taggart over the head with it so that he drops dead in his tracks. and i hear a man say he is dead, too; but i don't stop to see. don't seem natural, and yet a man's close to mortal danger if he gets whanged with any hard object, such as steel gun-barrels, on the head, close up to the temple; we call it the parrytal bone, you know, and i've known men and even horses that was killed so quick...."
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"then what?" snapped timber-wolf.
"then both him and her beats it like the mill-tails of hell! and that part's natural enough, him figuring he's killed the sheriff, and her figuring she's plumb killed you. they stampeded into the brush, ducking out toward the timber-lands where it was darkest, a bunch of hollering fools after them."
"and jim taggart?"
the "boys" whose presence billy winch had requested came hurrying in at the hall door, excitement and alarm shining in their eyes. one glance reassured them, and while dick ross gave expression to his relief in a windy sigh and sought hastily for materials to build him a cigarette to replace that which he had dropped as he raced here, charley peters stood and mopped at his forehead with an enormous dingy blue handkerchief and grinned. billy winch, who had the trick of pithy brevity when there was need of it, made his wants known sharply, and the two men, their spurs still dragging and clanking after them, hastened away for basin and soap and whatever else of winch's first-aid materials might be had at hand. in the meantime, winch was yanking a sheet off lynette brooke's bed, and ripping it into tatters for his bandages and rags and what he termed "mops and applications."
"it ain't necessary to probe for the bullet," he admitted, almost regretfully. "but i might poke around in there a mite, while the hole's good and wide open, to make sure that a piece of your shirt or something didn't get lodged inside...."
"i'll break your damned neck for trying it," threatened standing.
"well," sighed winch, "all i'll do then is just take a pack-needle and put in a stitch or two. remember when dick ross's horse...."
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"you'll take some warm water and soap and wash me off," said standing emphatically. "then you'll make me one of your infernal compresses out of clean cloth; and after that you'll leave me alone.... tell me about my horse, old sunlight. so gallup had him killed for me?"
"somebody pretty near blowed his head off with buckshot," billy winch told him, and again twinkling fires of anger flickered in the little man's eyes. "if gallup didn't have the job done, who did? i ask you!"
timber-wolf stared at the wall. within him, too, rose scorching anger, that resurgent bitter flood which was not lessened now because in the first place it had leaped upon him unexpectedly, and had thus been the cause of his humiliation. but within him there was another emotion, one of deep grief; for he loved a good horse, no man more. and sunlight was his pet and his trusted friend, and had been, for many a wilderness week, his only companion.
"you didn't leave him suffering any, bill?" his voice sounded cold and impersonal and matter-of-fact. yet billy winch understood and answered softly:
"i stopped long enough to make sure, timber. but i didn't have to shoot him; he just rared his head up and looked at me straight in the eye, as man to man, so help me god, and fell back ... dead. no; he didn't suffer much."
bruce standing was silent a long time, his eyes brooding, his brows drawn after a fashion which billy winch could make nothing certain of; anger and bitterness or a sign of his own bodily pain. they heard spurred boots in the hall, returning. then a quick look passed between timber-wolf and billy winch, and timber-wolf said hastily, dropping his voice and speaking with a peculiar softness:
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"when you get a chance, you take the boys and see that old sunlight is moved out of this skunk town; he's too fine a little horse to take his last rest here. out on a hilltop, somewhere; looking toward the east, bill. and a good, deep hole and ... leave the saddle and bridle on him, bill."
"i get you," returned winch gravely. and, by way of thoughtful acknowledgment of the justice of this thing, for billy winch, too, loved a horse, he muttered: "that's fair."
with the return of ross and peters, winch gave them their orders, as a stern and dreaded head master might issue commands to a couple of his boys, securing unfailing and immediate obedience. for the one job of both ross and peters, and the one job which had been theirs for five or six years, was to do what they were told by billy winch and ask no questions, and look sharp that they did not seek to introduce any of their own and original ideas into the carrying out of his behests. for this they were paid by timber-wolf, who used them for many things, consigning matters of vital importance into their hands by way of billy winch's brains and tongue.
"stand ready to hand me things when i ask for them, dick," said winch. he scrubbed his own hands with soap, and let dick pitch the water from the basin out the window. dick obeyed promptly, adding nothing of his own to the simple task beyond making sure that he pitched the whole basinful far out; far enough, in fact, to give a thorough wetting to one of the curious who had lingered outside, watching through the lighted window. "you, charley," ran on winch, "go down to where old sunlight is, and stick there until me and dick come out. his saddle and bridle ain't to be took off, and you'll have to keep your eye peeled some regular
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big pine citizen don't snake 'em, for their silver, under your eyes." charley understood enough to do as he was told, and hurried out. "now, dick, stand by with them rags and warm water."
winch went promptly to work, and, in his rough-and-ready fashion, did a good clean job of bandaging a simple wound. a raw wound like that must of necessity be intensely painful; yet timber-wolf's quiet and regular breathing never altered once, and not so much as the breadth of a hair did the muscular back flinch. they had just gotten the torn shirts lapped over into place and the coat thrown over standing's shoulders, and his hat picked up from the floor for him, when a man walking heavily came down the hall and stopped at the door, knocking sharply.
"who is it?" demanded winch.
"it's me, taggart. is standing all right?"
bruce standing himself, holding himself very erect, his head well up and his eyes cold and hard, opened the door.
"so the devil refused to take you, after all," he grumbled. "they had it reported that deveril had killed you. at that, it looks as though he'd come close to doing a good job of it."
for jim taggart's face, too, was white, and there was a broad band about his head, stained in one spot near the left temple.
"the same kind thought rides double," rejoined taggart, with a sudden flash of the eyes. "that wildcat of a girl came close to marking out your ticket to hell."
"where is she now?" asked standing eagerly. "did they bring her back?"
"gone clean, for the present," answered taggart. "if that fool of a babe deveril hadn't butted in, just piling up trouble for himself, and knocked me out while
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i wasn't even looking at him, i'd of had her by the heels. and now the two of 'em, two of a kind, if you ask me, are off into the mountains together. and i'm starting after them in ten minutes, and will drag 'em back before to-morrow night, just as sure as you're a foot high."
"what have you come to sling all this at me for?" snapped standing.
"i wanted to see if you was dead," returned taggart coolly. "now i just pinch both of 'em for assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill. if you'd of died, it would of been murder for her."
"at least, i'm glad you blew in, jim taggart. there are two things it might be just as well to get straight. first: when you and i, a dozen years ago, were sidekicks, prospecting together, bunking together, grubstaking each other, taking chances a lot of the time on a quick, hard finish to the little old game of life, we had it understood that if i died all of my belongings went to you; and if you cashed in first, anything you had went to me."
taggart nodded and said swiftly:
"my papers stand that way to this day! i never go back...."
"the more fool you, then," jeered standing. "i'm done with you, and my papers are changed already...."
"already?" taggart started visibly. "since when?"
"since yesterday. nothing i own, not so much as a wart on a log of mine, ever goes your way."
the bitterness in taggart's soul overspilled into his voice as he cried out savagely:
"sure, there you are! that's the way it goes. now that your luck's been running high and you don't need me, now that my luck's been dragging bottom, why then you're ready to pitch me over...."
"liar!" timber-wolf cut him short with the word
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which was like an explosion. but he did not pause to discuss a point of view, but continued immediately: "that's the first thing. here's the second: you've decided to run neck and neck with young gallup. so you can take him a word from me. tell him"—and standing's voice, husky with his emotions, made even jim taggart wonder what was coming—"that i came into his skunk hole of a town to-night just because he had the nerve to tell me not to. tell him that i know that was his work that my horse was killed just now. tell it him that if i ever come into his skunk hole once more in my life, it will be to pull his damned town down about his ears."
taggart chose to break into contemptuous laughter. but bruce standing, lost to all sense of his own pain, caught him angrily by the shoulder and shouted into his ears:
"and this, for the last word ever to be spoken between you and me, jim taggart. that rake-hell jezebel that shot me, shot me and not you! got that? i'm not asking you, sheriff or no sheriff, to chip in on my affairs; i'll attend to the little hell-cat, and you keep your hands off. and, as for babe deveril, since the cursed fool wants to show his hand by cutting in with her and trying to snatch her out of my reach, i'll attend to him at the same time. the likely thing is that they've headed into the wilderness, my wilderness, and i'm going after them. and you are to keep out of my way."
with a violent shove he thrust taggart out of his way and strode by him, going swiftly down the hall, dick ross swinging along close behind him and keeping a watchful eye upon taggart, little billy winch hopping along in the rear and spitting audacious venom at the sheriff with his baneful eyes. in this order the three came out under the shining stars.
