ory had been quickened; a suspicion of the
real cause of his disaster had dawned upon him--but his childish lips
were heroically sealed. The master glanced appealingly at the Doctor.

"Take him before you in the saddle to McKinstry's," said the latter
promptly. "I can attend to both."

The master lifted the boy tenderly in his arms. Johnny, stimulated by
the prospect of a free ride, became feebly interested in his fellow
sufferer.

"Did Theth hit him bad?" he asked.

"Seth?" echoed the master, wildly.

"Yeth. I theed him when he took aim."

The master did not reply, but the next moment Johnny felt himself
clasped in his arms in the saddle before him, borne like a whirlwind in
the direction of the McKinstry ranch.

CHAPTER XIV.

They found the wounded man lying in the front room upon a rudely
extemporized couch of bear-skins, he having sternly declined the
effeminacy of his wife's bedroom. In the possibility of a fatal
termination to his wound, and in obedience to a grim frontier tradition,
he had also refused to have his boots removed in order that he might
"die with them on," as became his ancestral custom. Johnny was therefore
speedily made comfortable in the McKinstry bed, while Dr. Duchesne gave
his whole attention to his more serious patient. The master glanced
hurriedly around for Mrs. McKinstry. She was not only absent from the
room, but there seemed to be no suggestion of her presence in the house.
To his greater surprise the hurried inquiry that rose to his lips was
checked by a significant warning from the attendant. He sat down beside
the now sleeping boy, and awaited the doctor's return with his mind
wandering between the condition of the little sufferer and the singular
revelation that had momentarily escaped his childish lips. If Johnny had
actually seen Seth fire at McKinstry, the latter's mysterious wound
was accounted for--but not Seth's motive. The act was so utterly
incomprehensible and inconsistent with Seth's avowed hatred of the
master that the boy must have been delirious.

He was roused by the entrance of the surgeon. "It's not so bad as I
thought," he said, with a reassuring nod. "It was a mighty close shave
between a shattered bone and a severed artery, but we've got the ball,
and he'll pull through in a week. By Jove! though--the old fire-eater
was more concerned about finding the ball than living or dying! Go in
there--he wants to see you. Don't let him talk too much. He's