ur mare and jog into
Stillwater for a buckboard and then come back and get me. What d'you
say?"

Twenty minutes after Ronicky Doone had swung into the saddle and raced
down the road, the buckboard arrived and the wounded man was helped on
to a pile of blankets in the body of the wagon.

The shooting, of course, was explained by the inevitable gun accident.
Ronicky Doone happened to be passing along that way and saw Bill Gregg
looking over his revolver as he rode along. At that moment the gun
exploded and--

The two men who had come out in the buckboard listened to the tale
with expressionless faces. As a matter of fact they had already heard
in Stillwater that no less a person than Ronicky Doone was on his way
toward that village in pursuit of a man who had ridden off on the
famous bay mare, Lou. But they accepted Ronicky's bland version of the
accident with perfect calm and with many expressions of sympathy. They
would have other things to say after they had deposited the wounded
man in Stillwater.

The trip in was a painful one for Bill Gregg. For one thing the
exhaustion of the long three days' trip was now causing a wave of
weariness to sweep over him. The numbness, which had come through the
leg immediately after the shooting, was now replaced by a steady and
continued aching. And more than all he was unnerved by the sense of
utter failure, utter loss. Never in his life had he fought so bitterly
and steadily for a thing, and yet he had lost at the very verge of
success.

Chapter Three

_At Stillwater_

The true story was, of course, known almost at once, but, since
Ronicky Doone swore that he would tackle the first man who accused him
of having shot down Bill Gregg, the talk was confined to whispers. In
the meantime Stillwater rejoiced in its possession of Ronicky Doone.
Beyond one limited section of the mountain desert he was not as
yet known, but he had one of those personalities which are called
electric. Whatever he did seemed greater because he, Ronicky Doone,
had done it.

Not that he had done a great many things as yet. But there was a
peculiar feeling in the air that Ronicky Doone was capable of great
and strange performances. Men older than he were willing to accept him
as their leader; men younger than he idolized him.

Ronicky Doone, then, the admired of all beholders, is leaning in the
doorway of Stillwater's second and best hotel. His bandanna today is
a terrific yellow, set off w