oat from the gambler's face, covered it again, and turned away.

"Bad company! Bad company!" said he, sadly shaking his head. "How did it
happen, Doctor? You were here? First"--he held up his hand, as if to
check the doctor's speech--"will he live?"

"Men have recovered from worse wounds," responded the doctor. "There's a
chance for him, at least."

He related, then, the circumstance of the meeting, the brief quarrel,
and the fight, Ten-Gallon putting in a word here and there, although his
testimony was neither asked nor welcomed.

"I don't know what the cause of the quarrel was," concluded the doctor.
"Two days ago I relinquished this claim to your son. He came here
immediately and took possession."

"You--you relinquished!" exclaimed Agnes, disappointment in her voice,
reproach in her eyes.

"I am sorry that you relinquished it," said the Governor. "This brave
young woman rode all the way to my ranch--almost a hundred miles--to
save it to you. I was absent when she arrived, but I set out with her at
the earliest possible moment upon my return. We rode all night last
night, sir, changing horses in Comanche this morning."

"I am grateful to you, both of you, for the trouble and fatigue you have
undergone in my behalf. But the case, as your son urged it, sir, was
beyond temporizing. Perhaps Miss Gates has told you?"

The Governor nodded curtly, a look of displeasure on his face.

"I can't believe that Jerry meant it," he protested. "It must have been
one of his jokes."

"I am sorry, then, that my idea of humor is so widely divergent from
his!" said Dr. Slavens with deep feeling.

"Well, he's paid for it. The poor boy has paid for his indiscretion,"
said the old man sadly.

He turned away and went a little space, where he stood as if in
meditation.

"You promised me that you'd do nothing until you returned and saw me,"
Agnes charged. "And I had saved it for you! I had saved it!"

"You would have been too late," returned the doctor sharply. "The
machinery for your humiliation was already in motion. I doubt whether
even the Governor could have stopped it in another day without a great
deal of unpleasant publicity for you. Boyle meant to have this piece of
land, and he got it. That's all."

Ten-Gallon was fooling around the fire. He drew over toward the group as
the Governor came back.

"Can my son be removed from here?" the old man asked.

The doctor said that he could not, without practically throwing