gh
the fleshy part. I bound it up as best I could and tried to persuade him
to go to bed. But he would go home. Nothing could stop him. Finally The
Duke agreed to go with him, and off they set, Bruce loudly protesting
that he could get home alone and did not want anyone.

It was a dismal break-up to the meet, and we all went home feeling
rather sick, so that it gave me no pleasure to find Moore waiting in my
shack for my report of Bruce. It was quite vain for me to make light of
the accident to him. His eyes were wide open with anxious fear when I
had done.

"You needn't tell me not to be anxious," he said, "you are anxious
yourself. I see it, I feel it."

"Well, there's no use trying to keep things from you," I replied, "but
I am only a little anxious. Don't you go beyond me and work yourself up
into a fever over it."

"No," he answered quietly, "but I wish his mother were nearer."

"Oh, bosh, it isn't coming to that; but I wish he were in better shape.
He is broken up badly without this hole in him."

He would not leave till I had promised to take him up the next day,
though I was doubtful enough of his reception. But next day The Duke
came down, his black bronco, Jingo, wet with hard riding.

"Better come up, Connor," he said, gravely, "and bring your bromides
along. He has had a bad night and morning and fell asleep only before
I came away. I expect he'll wake in delirium. It's the whisky more than
the bullet. Snakes, you know."

In ten minutes we three were on the trail, for Moore, though not
invited, quietly announced his intention to go with us.

"Oh, all right," said The Duke, indifferently, "he probably won't
recognize you any way."

We rode hard for half an hour till we came within sight of Bruce's
shack, which was set back into a little poplar bluff.

"Hold up!" said The Duke. "Was that a shot?" We stood listening. A
rifle-shot rang out, and we rode hard. Again The Duke halted us, and
there came from the shack the sound of singing. It was an old Scotch
tune.

"The twenty-third Psalm," said Moore, in a low voice.

We rode into the bluff, tied up our horses and crept to the back of the
shack. Looking through a crack between the logs, I saw a gruesome thing.
Bruce was sitting up in bed with a Winchester rifle across his knees and
a belt of cartridges hanging over the post. His bandages were torn off,
the blood from his wound was smeared over his bare arms and his pale,
ghastly face; his eyes wer