aying far over to one side. Even as he went
hurtling past them his hold grew slack and he slumped, head foremost, to
the ground. The brown horse gave a startled leap away from him and went
on with empty stirrups flapping.

They sprang down and lifted him to a less awkward position, and Big
Medicine pillowed the sweat-dampened, carroty head in the hollow of his
arm. Those who had been in the lead looked back startled when the brown
horse tore past them with that empty saddle; saw what had happened,
wheeled and galloped back. They dismounted and stood silently grouped
about poor, ungainly Happy Jack, lying there limp and motionless in Big
Medicine's arms. Not one of them remembered then that there was a man
with a rifle not more than two hundred yards away; or, if they did, they
quite forgot that the rifle might be dangerous to themselves. They were
thinking of Happy Jack.

Happy Jack, butt of all their jokes and jibes; Happy the croaker,
the lugubrious forecaster of trouble; Happy Jack, the ugliest, the
stupidest, the softest-hearted man of them all. He had "betched" there
would be someone killed, over these Dot sheep; he had predicted trouble
of every conceivable kind; and they had laughed at him, swore at him,
lied to him, "joshed" him unmercifully, and kept him in a state of
chronic indignation, never dreaming that the memory of it would choke
them and strike them dumb with that horrible, dull weight in their
chests with which men suffer when a woman would find the relief of
weeping.

"Where's he hurt?" asked Weary, in the repressed tone which only tragedy
can bring into a man's voice, and knelt beside Big Medicine.

"I dunno--through the lungs, I guess; my sleeve's gitting soppy right
under his shoulder." Big Medicine did not bellow; his voice was as quiet
as Weary's.

Weary looked up briefly at the circle of staring faces. "Pink, you pile
onto Glory and go wire for a doctor. Try Havre first; you may get one
up on the nine o' clock train. If you can't, get one down on the
'leven-twenty, from Great Falls. Or there's Benton--anyway, git one. If
you could catch MacPherson, do it. Try him first, and never mind a Havre
doctor unless you can't get MacPherson. I'd rather wait a couple of
hours longer, for him. I'll have a rig--no, you better get a team from
Jim. They'll be fresh, and you can put 'em through. If you kill 'em," he
added grimly, "we can pay for 'em." He had his jack-knife out, and
was already slashing ca