could be sent for the doctor. Two men
had already started for the beach with Carey bound and gagged and he was
to be kept on the tug until some way could be found of disposing of him.

"I'll stay behind; I gotta clean up here; you don't need to know nothin'
about it," said Leary gruffly.

One of Carey's men had been shot and instantly killed and another still
lay unconscious near the barricade from his battering on the head early
in the fight. Leary grimly declared that the others would not be likely
to talk of their night's adventure.

It had been a foolhardy undertaking, with potentialities of exposure and
danger that added fear to the grief in Archie's heart at the Governor's
fall. At best the thing was horrible, and but for the coolness with
which Leary and Perky were meeting the situation Archie would have been
for abandoning any attempt at secrecy.

"It was th' ole Governor's way o' doin' it," said Leary, as though
reading Archie's thoughts. "Ole Governor never made no mistakes. We
ain't agoin' to make no mistakes now, doin' what he tole us not to do.
I'll go back and bury that poor devil and cover up the place. I guess
he's luckier bein' dead anyhow. An' then I'll wake up that other cuss
an' get rid of 'im. All you gotta do is t' ferget about it and take care
o' ole Governor."

III

Archie was very humble as he reflected that he hadn't done justice to
the intelligence and charm, to say nothing of the professional skill of
Dr. Katherine Reynolds in his hurried glimpse of her at Heart o' Dreams.
His fears that a woman doctor, who was really only a girl of the age of
Ruth and Isabel, would not be equal to the emergency were dismissed an
hour after she reached Huddleston. She brought the camp nurse with her
and was fortified with bags of instruments and hospital supplies.

She went about her examination without a question; made it as though she
were daily in the habit of dealing with wounded men; specifically called
for boiling water, laid out sponges and bottles and oddly shaped
trinkets of steel, and the Governor's room in the ramshackle hotel was
quickly transformed into a surgery. Perky had gone aboard the tug, which
was to remain in the bay until the outcome of the Governor's injury
could be learned. Putney Congdon kept Archie company in the hall outside
the sick room.

The morning was breaking when the door opened.

"There's about one chance in a thousand," said Dr. Reynolds, looking
very tired bu