But I reckon I'll be seeing you again anyway, if the sheriff doesn't
get me."

"Do you think they will come for you to-night?" she asked, suddenly
remembering that her father had told her that Duncan had gone to Lazette
for the sheriff. "What will they do?"

"Nothing, I reckon. That is, they won't do anything except take me into
custody. They can't do anything until Doubler dies."

"If he doesn't die?" she said. "What can they do then?"

"Usually it isn't considered a crime to shoot a man--if he doesn't die.
Likely they wouldn't do anything to me if Doubler gets well. They might
want me to leave the country. But I don't reckon that I'm going to let
them take me--whether Doubler dies or not. Once they've got a man it's
pretty easy to prove him guilty--in this country. Usually they hang a man
and consider the evidence afterward. I'm not letting them do that to me.
If I was guilty, I suppose I might look at it differently, but maybe
not."

Sheila was silent; he became silent, too, and looked gravely at her.

"Well," he said presently, "I'll be going." He urged his pony forward, but
when it had gone only a few steps he turned and looked back at her. "Do
your best to keep Doubler alive," he said.

There was a note of the old mockery in his voice, and it lingered long in
Sheila's ears after she had watched him vanish into the mysterious shadows
that surrounded the trail. Stiffling a sigh of regret and pity, she spoke
to her pony, and the animal shuffled down the long slope, forded the
river, and so brought her to the door of Doubler's cabin.

The doctor was there; he was bending over Doubler at the instant Sheila
entered the cabin, and he looked up at her with grave, questioning eyes.

"I am going to nurse him," she informed the doctor.

"That's good," he returned softly; "he needs lots of care--the care that a
woman can give him."

Then he went off into a maze of medical terms and phrases that left her
confused, but out of which she gathered the fact that the bullet had
missed a vital spot, that Doubler was suffering more from shock than from
real injury, and that the only danger--his constitution being strong
enough to withstand the shock--would be from blood poisoning. He had some
fever, the doctor told Sheila, and he left a small vial on a shelf with
instructions to administer a number of drops of its contents in a spoonful
of water if Doubler became restless. The bandages were to be changed
several times a da