my wind
out of the northwest, and the shanty-boat lifted at intervals on a wave
that rolled out of the main current and across the eddy, making their
operating room even more unstable.

Under their onslaught the death which was taking hold of Jest Prebol was
checked, and the river rat whose life had been forfeited for his sly
crimes became the object of a doctor's sentiment and belief in his own
training.

Long after midnight, when some few of the patrons of the games had
already taken their departure, the doors opened oftener and oftener,
letting the geometrical shaft of the yellow light flare out across the
waters, and the grotesque shadows of those who departed stood out
against the night and waters as the men shivered in the wind and bent to
feel their way into the boats.

After dawn Doctor Grell and his assistant, peaked and white, limp with
their tremendous effort, and shivering with exhaustion of mind and body,
walked out of the little shanty-boat, up to the big one, sat down with
Buck and Slip to breakfast, and then took their own course across the
ruffled and tumble-surfaced river.

"I 'low he'll pull through," Doctor Grell admitted, almost reluctantly.
"He's in bad shape, though, with the things the bullet carried into him,
but we sure swabbed him out. How'd the game go to-night, boys?"

"Purty good." Buck shook his head. "Tammer sure had luck his way--won a
seventy-dollar pot onct."

"I sure wanted to play," Grell shook his head, "but in my profession you
aren't your own, and you cayn't quit."

"We owe you for it," Buck said. "He's our friend----"

"And he's ourn, too," Grell declared, "so we'll split the difference. I
expect it was worth a hundred dollars what we two did to-night. That'll
be fifty, boys, if it's all right."

"Yes, suh," Slip said, handing over five ten-dollar bills, and Grell
handed two of them to his companion, who shook his head, saying:

"Nope, Doc! Ten only to-night. My first fee!"

"And you'll never have a more interesting case," Grell declared. "No,
indeed! You'll see cases, come you go to college, but none more
interesting, and if we've pulled him through, you'll never have better
reason for satisfaction."

The two got into a little motorboat and went bounding and rocking in the
wind and waves toward the town behind the levee on the far bank. The
two gamblers watched the little boat rocking along till it was but a
black fleck in the midst of the weltering brown waters.