time with a
tightening of the muscles about his jaws. He helped pack the wounded man
with wet cloths. He ran out and stopped a wrangling noise of the
cowpunchers several times. But mostly he sat without motion beside the
bed, trying to will the sufferer back to life.

And in the middle of the morning, after taking a temperature, the doctor
looked to the rancher with a sort of dull wonder.

"It's dropping?" whispered Drew.

"It's lower. I don't think it's dropping. It can't be going down so
soon. Wait till the next time I register it. If it's still lower then,
he'll get well."

The grey man sagged forward from his chair to his knees and took the
hands of Calamity, long-fingered, bony, cold hands they were. There he
remained, moveless, his keen eyes close to the wandering stare of the
delirious man. Out of the exhaustless reservoir of his will he seemed to
be injecting an electric strength into the other, a steadying and even
flow of power that passed from his hands and into the body of Calamity.

When the time came, and Young stood looking down at the thermometer,
Drew lifted haggard eyes, waiting.

"It's lower!"

The great arms of the rancher were thrown above his head; he rose,
changed, triumphant, as if he had torn his happiness from the heart of
the heavens, and went hastily from the room, silent.

At the stable he took his great bay, saddled him, and swung out on the
trail for Eldara, a short, rough trail which led across the
Saverack--the same course which Nash and Bard had taken the day before.

But the river had greatly fallen--the water hardly washed above the
knees of the horse except in the centre of the stream; by noon he
reached the town and went straight for the office of Glendin. The deputy
was not there, and the rancher was referred to Murphy's saloon.

There he found Glendin, seated at a corner table with a glass of beer in
front of him, and considering the sun-whitened landscape lazily through
the window. At the sound of the heavy footfall of Drew he turned, rose,
his shoulders flattened against the wall behind him like a cornered man
prepared for a desperate stand.

"It's all right," cried Drew. "It's all over, Glendin. Duffy won't press
any charges against Bard; he says that he's given the horse away. And
Calamity Ben is going to live."

"Who says he will?"

"I've just ridden in from his bedside. Dr. Young says the crisis is
past. And so--thank God--there's no danger to Bard; he's fre