ce."

"Oh, go to hell, the whole lot of yuh!" flared Andy, rising to an
elbow. "What the dickens are yuh roosting around here for? Why don't
yuh go on out to camp where yuh belong? You're a nice bunch to set
around comforting the sick! _Vamos_, darn yuh!"

Whereupon they took the hint and departed, assuring Andy, by way of
farewell, that he was an unappreciative cuss and didn't deserve any
sympathy or sick-calls. They also condoled openly with Pink because he
had been detailed as nurse, and advised him to sit right down on Andy
if he got too sassy and haughty over being shot up by a real outlaw.
They said that any fool could build himself a bunch of trouble with a
homicidal lunatic like Blink, and it wasn't anything to get vain over.

Pink slammed the door upon their jibes and offered Andy a cigarette he
had just rolled; not that Andy was too sick to roll his own, but
because Pink was notably soft-hearted toward a sick man and was prone
to indulge himself in trifling attentions.

"Yuh don't want to mind that bunch," he placated. "They mean all
right, but they just can't help joshing a man to death."

Andy accepted also a light for the cigarette, and smoked moodily. "It
ain't their joshing," he explained after a minute "It's puzzling over
what I can't understand that gets on my nerves. I can't see through
the thing, Pink, no way I look at it."

"Looks plain enough to me," Pink answered. "Uh course, it's funny
Blink should be the man, and be setting there listening--"

"Yes, but darn it all, Pink, there's a funnier side to it than that,
and it's near driving me crazy trying to figure it out. Yuh needn't
tell anybody, Pink, but it's like this: I was just merely and simply
romancing when I told that there blood-curdling tale! I never was
south uh the Wyoming line except when I was riding in a circus and
toured through, and that's the truth. I never was down in the San
Simon basin. I never set on no pinnacle with no field glasses--" Andy
stopped short his labored confession to gaze, with deep disgust, upon
Pink's convulsed figure. "Well," he snapped, settling back on the
pillow, "_laugh_, darn yuh! and show your ignorance! By gracious, I
wish _I_ could see the joke!" He reached up gingerly and readjusted
the bandage on his head, eyed Pink sourly a moment, and with a grunt
eloquent of the mood he was in turned his face to the wall.

* * * * *

MISS MARTIN'S MISSION

When Andy