rrow
ploughed across the floor, lifting a splinter as long and even as if it
had been grooved out by a machine.

"Look!" said Sally, "they're firin' breast high to catch us standing,
and on the level of the floor to get us if we lie down. That's Nash. I
know his trademark."

"From the back of the house we can answer them," said Bard. "Let's try
it."

"Pepper for their salt, eh?" answered Sally, and they ran back through
the old shack to the last room.

CHAPTER XXXIX

LEGAL MURDER

As Drew entered his bedroom he found the doctor in the act of restoring
the thermometer to its case. His coat was off and his sleeves rolled up
to the elbow; he looked more like a man preparing to chop wood than a
physician engaging in a struggle with death; but Dr. Young had the
fighting strain. Otherwise he would never have persisted in Eldara.

Already the subtle atmosphere of sickness had come upon the room. The
shades of the windows were drawn evenly, and low down, so that the
increasing brightness of the morning could only temper, not wholly
dismiss the shadows. Night is the only reality of the sick-bed; the day
is only a long evening, a waiting for the utter dark. The doctor's
little square satchel of instruments, vials, and bandages lay open on
the table; he had changed the apartment as utterly as he had changed his
face by putting on great, horn-rimmed spectacles. They gave an owl-like
look to him, an air of omniscience. It seemed as if no mortal ailment
could persist in the face of such wisdom.

"Well?" whispered Drew.

"You can speak out, but not loudly," said the doctor calmly. "He's
delirious; the fever is getting its hold."

"What do you think?"

"Nothing. The time hasn't come for thinking."

He bent his emotionless eye closer on the big rancher.

"You," he said, "ought to be in bed this moment."

Drew waved the suggestion aside.

"Let me give you a sedative," added Young.

"Nonsense. I'm going to stay here."

The doctor gave up the effort; dismissed Drew from his mind, and focused
his glance on the patient once more. Calamity Ben was moving his head
restlessly from side to side, keeping up a gibbering mutter. It rose now
to words.

"Joe, a mule is to a hoss what a woman is to a man. Ever notice? The
difference ain't so much in what they do as what they don't do. Me
speakin' personal, I'll take a lot from any hoss and lay it to jest
plain spirit; but a mule can make me mad by standin' still and do