en the man passed on down the trail, and Limber Tim again grew on to
the fence, and chattered his teeth together, and waited developments,
not at all certain that he had not lied.

"'Ow's the Widder, Limber?"

Limber unloosed himself from the fence, and tried to stand straight up
and tell the truth and nothing but the truth.

"Better, thank yer. That is, the blood is stopped, or most of it, you
know--the most of it. Bunker Hill is hurt some too, you know. Blood all
over her arm. Poor girl, poor girl! but she didn't whimper. Not she.
Nary a sniff."

"Both of 'em hurt?"

"Yes, same bullet, you know--same shot--same pistol--same--"

The man had too much to tell already, and almost ran in his haste to
reach the Howling Wilderness and tell what had happened.

This time, as Limber Tim screwed himself up against the fence, he felt
pretty certain that somewhere or somehow during the morning he had lied
like a trooper, and was very miserable.

"Hard on Sandy that," said the bar-keeper to the second early-riser, who
had just arrived, as he stood behind his breastwork in his night-shirt,
and handed down to his customer his morning bottle, with his hairy arms
all naked, and his red uncombed hair reaching up like the blaze from a
pine-knot fire.

"Yes," answered the man, as he fired a volley down his throat, and then
fell back to the fire, wiping his big bearded mouth with the back of his
hand, "Yes, but Limber Tim says she'll soon be up again; says the
blood's all stopped, and all that. You see, the signs are all in her
favor. It's a good thing for a shot, to see it bleed. Best thing for a
bad shot is to see it bleed well. That is, if yer can stop the blood in
time. But now, in this 'ere case, the blood's all stopped. Just come
down from there. Limber just told me blood's all stopped."

There was a man standing back in the corner by the fire, half in the
dark, warming the lower end of his back and listening with both ears all
this time. He now came out of the dark, and began--

"You darned infernal fool! Sold clean out. It's not the Widder at
all--it's Sandy. Split his foot open with an ax. Blood gushed out all
over Bunker Hill. Kivered Bunker Hill with blood clean up to the
elbows."

"And what the devil was Bunker Hill a-doin' at Sandy's?"

The man from the dark saw that somebody had been sold, and, fearing it
might possibly be himself, simply pecked at the other man, staggered up
to the bar, pecked at the head tha