d at each other and at Swan and at the doctor and at each other
again, and headed for the door. But Swan was leaning against it, and his
eyes were on them. "I would like it if you say somebody rides to get the
doctor," he hinted quietly.

Sorry looked at Jim. "I rode like hell," he stated heavily. "I leave it
to Jim."

"You shore'n hell did!" Jim agreed, and Swan removed his big form from
the door.

"You boys goin' over t' Spirit Canyon?" Frank wanted to know.

"Yeah," said Sorry, answering for them both, and they went out, giving
Swan a sidelong look of utter bafflement as they passed him. Talking by
the thought route from Spirit Canyon to Boise City was evidently a bit
too much for even their phlegmatic souls to contemplate with perfect
calm.

"They'll keep it to theirselves, whether they believe it or not," Frank
assured Swan in his labored whisper. "It don't go down with me. I ain't
supe'stitious enough fer that."

"The doctor he comes, don't he?" Swan retorted. "I shall go back now and
milk the cows and do chores."

"But if your shoulder is lame, Swan, how can you?" Lorraine asked in her
unexpected fashion.

Swan swallowed and looked helplessly at the doctor, who stood smoothing
his chin. "The muscle strain is not serious," he said calmly. "A little
gentle exercise will prevent further trouble, I think." Whereupon he
turned abruptly to the door of the other room, glanced in at Brit and
beckoned Lorraine with an upraised finger.

"You have had a hard time of it yourself, young lady," he told her. "You
needn't worry about Swan. He is not suffering appreciably. I shall mix
you a very unpleasant dose of medicine, and then I want you to go to bed
and sleep. I shall stay with your father to-night; not that it is
necessary, but because I prefer daylight for the trip back to town. So
there is no reason why you should sit up and wear yourself out. You will
have plenty of time to do that while your father's bones mend."

He proceeded to mix the unpleasant dose, which Lorraine swallowed and
straightway forgot, in the muddle of thoughts that whirled confusingly
in her brain. Little things distressed her oddly, while her father's
desperate state left her numb. She lay down on the cot in the farther
corner of the kitchen where her father had slept just last night--it
seemed so long ago!--and almost immediately, as her senses recorded it,
bright sunlight was shining into the room.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

LONE TAK