rry about it! Get some
water on to boil as fast as you can!" Slavens directed the nerveless
chief of police.

Ten-Gallon set about his employment with alacrity while Slavens went
over to Shanklin, turning his face up to the sky. For a little while he
stooped over Hun; then he took the gambler's coat from the saddle and
spread it over his face. Hun Shanklin was in need of no greater service
that man could render him.

Dr. Slavens took off his coat and brought out his instrument-case. He
gave Boyle such emergency treatment as was possible where the
gun-fighter lay, and then called Ten-Gallon to help take him into the
tent.

"Lord, he's breathin' through his back!" said Ten-Gallon. "He'll never
live till we git him to the tent--never in this world, Doc! I knew a
feller that was knifed in the back one time till he breathed through his
ribs that way, and he----"

"Never mind," said Slavens. "Take hold of him."

Ten-Gallon's fire burned briskly, and the water boiled. Dr. Slavens
sterilized his instruments in a pan of it, and set about to establish
the drainage for the wound upon which the slender chance of Boyle's life
depended. Boyle was unconscious, as he had been from the moment he fell.
They stretched him on the doctor's cot. With the blankets spread
underfoot to keep down the dust, the early sun shining in through the
lifted flap, Slavens put aside whatever animosity he held against the
man and went to work earnestly in an endeavor to save his life.

Ten-Gallon showed a nervous anxiety to get away. He wanted to go after
his horse; he wanted to go to Boyle's tent and get breakfast for
himself; and then he pressed the necessity of his presence in Comanche
to keep and preserve the peace. But Slavens would not permit him to quit
the tent until he could no longer be of assistance.

It was not the wounded body of Jerry Boyle that the pot-bellied peace
officer feared, but the stiffening frame of Hun Shanklin, lying out
there in the bright sun. Every time he looked that way he drew up on
himself, like a snail. At length Slavens gave him permission to leave,
charging him to telephone to Meander for the coroner the moment that he
arrived in Comanche, and to get word to Boyle's people at the earliest
possible hour.

There seemed to be nothing for Slavens to do but to forego his trip in
quest of Agnes, and sit there in the hope that she would come. Boyle
could not be left alone, and Shanklin's body must be brought up out o