es. That is all. But I would not like it if
everybody maybe finds it out that I do that, and makes talk about it."

He looked straight at Jim and Sorry, and those two unprepossessing ones
looked at each other and at Swan and at the doctor and at each other
again, and headed for the door. But Swan was leaning against it, and
his eyes were on them. "I would like it if you say somebody rides to
get the doctor," he hinted quietly.

Sorry looked at Jim. "I rode like hell," he stated heavily. "I leave
it to Jim."

"You shore'n hell did!" Jim agreed, and Swan removed his big form from
the door.

"You boys goin' over t' Spirit Canyon?" Frank wanted to know.

"Yeah," said Sorry, answering for them both, and they went out, giving
Swan a sidelong look of utter bafflement as they passed him. Talking
by the thought route from Spirit Canyon to Boise City was evidently a
bit too much for even their phlegmatic souls to contemplate with
perfect calm.

"They'll keep it to theirselves, whether they believe it or not," Frank
assured Swan in his laboured whisper. "It don't go down with me. I
ain't supe'stitious enough fer that."

"The doctor he comes, don't he?" Swan retorted. "I shall go back now
and milk the cows and do chores."

"But if your shoulder is lame, Swan, how can you?" Lorraine asked in
her unexpected fashion.

Swan swallowed and looked helplessly at the doctor, who stood smoothing
his chin. "The muscle strain is not serious," he said calmly. "A
little gentle exercise will prevent further trouble, I think."
Whereupon he turned abruptly to the door of the other room, glanced in
at Brit and beckoned Lorraine with an upraised finger.

"You have had a hard time of it yourself, young lady," he told her.
"You needn't worry about Swan. He is not suffering appreciably. I
shall mix you a very unpleasant dose of medicine, and then I want you
to go to bed and sleep. I shall stay with your father to-night; not
that it is necessary, but because I prefer daylight for the trip back
to town. So there is no reason why you should sit up and wear yourself
out. You will have plenty of time to do that while your father's bones
mend."

He proceeded to mix the unpleasant dose, which Lorraine swallowed and
straightway forgot, in the muddle of thoughts that whirled confusingly
in her brain. Little things distressed her oddly, while her father's
desperate state left her numb. She lay down on the cot in the farther
corne