d appeal to their better
instincts or would he reach for a gun and give them protective pills?
The man of sense never goes without his gun in wolf land, but
Singleton--well, in peace times he could have lived a long lifetime,
and no one ever guessed what a weak sister he was, but he's sure out
of place on the border."

"I'm tired wearing this halo," observed Rhodes, referring to the white
handkerchief around his head. "Also some of the dope you gave me seems
to be evaporating from my system, and I feel like hitting the Piman
breeze. Can we strike trail tomorrow?"

"We cannot. Dona Luz has been dosing out the dope for you--Mexican
women are natural doctors with their own sort of herbs--and she says
three days before you go in the sun. I've a notion she sort of let the
Mexicans think that you were likely to cash in, and you bled so like a
stuck pig that it was easy enough to believe the worst."

"Perhaps that's why Conrad felt safe in leaving me outside of jail.
With Dona Luz as doctor, and a non-professional like you as assistant,
I reckon he thought my chance of surviving that monkey wrench assault
was slim, mighty slim!"

"Y--yes," agreed Pike, "under ordinary conditions he might have been
justified in such surmise, but that would be figuring on the normal
thickness of the normal civilized skull, but yours--why, Bub, all I'm
puzzling over now is how it happens that the monkey wrench was only
twisted a mite, not broke at all!"

"You scandalous old varmint!" grinned Kit. "Go on with your weak-minded
amusements, taking advantage of a poor lone cripple,--refused by the
army, and a victim of the latest German atrocity! I suppose--I
suppose,"--he continued darkly, "everyone on and around Granados agrees
that I was the villain in the assault?"

"I couldn't say as to that," returned Pike judicially. "Dona Luz would
dose you, and plaster you, just the same if you had killed a half
dozen instead of knocking the wind out of one. She's pretty fine and
all woman, but naturally since they regard you as my _companero_ they
are shy about expressing themselves when I'm around--all except
Singleton--and you heard him."

"Good and plenty," agreed Kit. "Say, I'm going to catch up on sleep
while I've a chance, and you rustle along and get any tag ends of
things needed for the trail. I'm going to strike for Mesa Blanca, as
that will take us up into the country of that Alisal mine. If we go
broke there is Mesa Blanca ranch work to f