mper. It added to his wretchedness
not a little when the report reached him that the doctor was confined
to his bed in the hospital at Kuskinook. In fact, this news plunged
"Mexico" into deepest gloom.

"If he's took to bed," he said, "there ain't much hope, I guess, for
they'd never get him there unless he was too far gone to fight 'em off."

But at the Kuskinook Hospital there was no anxiety felt in regard to the
doctor's illness. He was run down with the fall and winter's work. He
had caught cold, a slight inflammation had set up in the bowels, and
that was all. The inflammation had been checked and in a few days he
would be on his feet again.

"If we could only work a scheme to keep him in bed a month," groaned
Dick to his nurse as they stood beside his bed.

"There is, unhappily, no one in authority over him," replied Margaret,
"but we'll keep him ill as long as we can. Dr. Cotton," and here she
smilingly appealed to the newly appointed assistant, "you will help, I
am sure."

"Most certainly. Now we have him down we shall combine to keep him
there."

"Yes, a month at the very least," cried Dick.

But Barney laughed their plans to scorn. In two days he promised them he
would be fit again.

"It is the Superintendent of the Hospital against the Medical
Superintendent of the Crow's Nest Railway," said Dr. Cotton, "and I
think in this case I'll back the former, from what I've seen."

"Ah," replied Margaret, "that is because you haven't known your patient
long, Doctor. When he speaks the word of command we simply obey."

And that is just what happened. On the afternoon of the second day,
when both the doctor and Dick had gone off to their work and Barney had
apparently fallen into a quiet sleep, the silence that reigned over the
flat was broken by Ben Fallows coming up the stair with a telegram in
his hand.

"It's fer the doctor," said Ben, "an' the messenger said as 'ow 'Mexico'
had got shot and--"

Swiftly Margaret closed the door of the room in which Barney lay. Ben's
voice, though not loud, was of a peculiarly penetrating quality. Two
words had caught Barney's ear, "Mexico" and "shot."

"Let me have the wire," he said quietly, when Margaret came in.

"I intended to give it to you, Barney," she replied as quietly. "You
will do nothing rash, I am sure, and you always know best."

Barney opened the telegram and read, "'Mexico' shot. Bullet not found.
Wants doctor to come if possible."

"Dr. Cotton i