n walk," he
protested. "Lemme try, anyhow."

"No," insisted June.

Blister knelt beside Dillon. "Where's the wound at?" he asked.

The young fellow showed him.

"J-June, you go get Doc T-Tuckerman," Blister ordered.

She flew to obey.

The fat man opened the shirt.

"Look out for the blood," Bob said, still faintly. "Ouch!"

Blister's hand was traveling slowly next to the flesh. "N-no blood here,"
he said.

"Why, I felt it."

"R-reckon not, son." Blister exposed his hand in the moonlight.

The evidence bore out what he said.

"Maybe it's bleeding internally," Bob said.

Larson had picked up the belt they had unstrapped from Dillon's waist. He
was examining it closely. His keen eyes found a dent in the buckle. The
buckle had been just above the spot where Bob complained of the pain.

"Maybe it ain't," Larson said. "Looks like he hit yore belt an' the
bullet went flyin' wild."

A closer examination showed that this must be what had taken place. There
was no wound on Bob's body. He had been stunned by the shock and his
active imagination had at once accepted the assumption that he had been
wounded.

Bob rose with a shamefaced laugh. The incident seemed to him very
characteristic. He was always making a fool of himself by getting
frightened when there was no need of it. One could not imagine Dud
Hollister lying down and talking faintly about an internal bleeding when
there was not a scratch on his body, nor fancying that he could feel
blood soaking through his shirt because somebody had shot at him.

As the three men walked back toward the hotel, they met June and Dud. The
girl cried out at sight of Bob.

"I'm a false alarm," he told her bitterly. "He didn't hit me a-tall."

"Hit his b-belt buckle. If this here T-Texas man lives to be a hundred
he'll never have a closer call. Think of a fellow whangin' away with a
forty-five right close to him, hitting him where he was aimin' for, and
not even scratching Bob. O' course the shock of it knocked him cold.
Naturally it would. But I'll go on record that our friend here was born
lucky. I'd ought by rights to be holdin' an inquest on the remains,"
Blister burbled cheerfully.

June said nothing. She drew a long sigh of relief and looked at Bob to
make sure that they were concealing nothing from her.

He met her look in a kind of dogged despair. On this one subject he was
so sensitive that he found criticisms where none were intended. Blister
was making e