resently found them hanging under a
calico curtain that Willett had already nearly torn down in
unsuccessful, unseeing search. "Here you are," he said, tossing the
garments on the bed. "Here's your pistol, Colt's 44; every chamber
loaded and ready for business. You'll use a different belt when you've
been a month in Arizona--and you'll shed top boots for 'Patchie
moccasins. Let me help you, Willett. You're a bit blown. Here, douse
your head in that----" and as he spoke Bucketts half filled a bowl and
went limping out to the olla for more and cooler water, leaving Willett
fussing at his riding breeches and damning Strong's striker for being
away among the gaping, staring, empty-headed gang at the bluff at the
moment he was most needed.

As Bucketts was lifting the vessel from the cool depths of the hanging
reservoir, he heard his name faintly called, and there, at the side
door of the doctor's quarters, pale and suffering, barefooted and
mantled with a sheet, his arm and shoulder bandaged, stood Harris.

"Tell Willett to come out," he said. "I must see him before he goes."

"You go back to bed. I'll tell him," but Harris stood his ground
despite the fact that the attendant had laid a hand upon his unbound
shoulder, and was begging him to return. Bucketts set the pitcher
inside the door. "Here's cooler water, Willett," he said, "and here's
Harris at the door--says he must see you before you start."

Then, without waiting for answer, the quartermaster hurried along the
path to the front in search of the doctor; saw him far over back of the
hospital, heading for the platform; saw Mrs. Archer, on her own veranda
by this time, in eager talk with Mrs. Stannard, and Lilian drooping at
the corner pillar; hurried back to get his stick and to further rebuke
Harris, when, afar down to the south-east came the sound of a shot,
half-muffled by distance, and, gazing from the rear end of the little
gallery, he saw, a mile or more away across the stream and skirting the
willows, two horsemen coming at top speed; saw, emerging from the
willows at the near side of the ford, a man who walked heavily through
the yielding sand, holding his hand to his face. He, too, had heard the
shot and was making, 'cross lots, for home. It was Case, the
bookkeeper, disturbed, perhaps, said Bucketts, in his siesta among the
willows and doing his best to gain shelter. Before Case could get a
fourth of the way across the barren flat, tacking perceptibly am