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WITH Steele in his cabin were Rice and Turk Wilson. Jim Banks after the one outburst had maintained stoutly that he had appeared on the scene of action tonight merely because he had heard rifle shots and because it was his sworn duty to keep the peace. That when Steele had come upon him from the rear he had supposed he was one of the gang trying to rob the Goblet.

"You lie so well," Steele had said contemptuously, "that we'd have no case against you in court. Good night, Jim."

Now his one interest lay in Turk Wilson. There were ten feet of water covering his gold and he could forget the Goblet for the rest of the night. He turned from Turk, who lay white and silent on the cabin bunk, and picked up his telephone, ringing Indian City and curtly asking for Mr. Carruthers.

"Hello, Bob; this is Steele," he announced when, after ten minutes' delay he heard Carruthers' sleepy voice at the other end of the line. "You said Dr. Gilchrist was in camp, didn't you? Well, I want him to come over right away … Oh, I know. But listen. Bob. It's a case of a friend of mine pretty badly hurt and in my fight. Yes, we've had it little shindy over here; remember Embry? He's at the bottom of it. ​Gilchrist will have to make the trip whether he's tired or not if he's any sort of a man. … Yes, horseback. Get Ed Hurley to ride with him to show him the way; hate to bother Ed so soon but … What!"

For Carruthers had told him that though they had been expecting Hurley all night he hadn't put in an appearance.

"That's infernally strange," muttered Steele wonderingly. "I don't understand … Well, in the meantime get Gilchrist started this way. You can scare up one of the men over there who can pilot him. So long."

And he clicked up the receiver and stood staring at it with frowning eyes.

"Hurley ought to have been there hours ago," he told himself, puzzled to find the reason for his loitering. "I told him to hurry."

He shrugged his shoulders and went back to Turk's side. Hurley could take care of himself and no doubt in the morning there'd be a simple enough explanation forthcoming. Right now Turk's very considerable suffering was the one thing that mattered.

They had cut away the right leg of Turk's overalls, man's way always of getting to a wound, and found the limb bruised, cut and swollen. Whether the bone was crushed neither Steele nor Rice was positive; Turk, for his part, assured them sulphurously that it was busted an' smashed all to hell. They bathed it and bandaged it and gave Turk a big drink of whiskey, thereafter waiting impatiently for the coming of Dr. Gilchrist. And when he found himself with nothing ​to do but smoke his pipe and look at Turk, Steele found also that he was pondering a good deal more upon Ed Hurley's strange behaviour than upon that of Embry or Banks. Hurley wasn't the man to ignore a direct order like this …

"I'm going down to the meadow where the horses are," he said suddenly. "I want to see if Ed took one of them."

"Take your gun then," advised Rice briefly, "an' look out for skunks; the woods is full of 'em lately."

Steele nodded his understanding, pocketed his automatic freshly filled, and went out. In the little pasture, though he searched half an hour, he found neither Hurley's horse nor his own. Here was fresh food for perplexity.

"Looks as though he took both of them," he pondered. "He wouldn't do that."

A faint sound which at first he could not locate brought him to an abrupt halt. A man's voice, he thought, coming from a distance, barely audible? Was it, perchance, Hurley calling?

It came again and he knew now, a low moaning as of a man in great bodily pain. And the voice came from out yonder somewhere toward the centre of the meadow. …

He found him a moment later. It was Ed Hurley, lying on his back, Steele's old grey hat on the ground beside him.

"Ed!" cried Steele, going down on his knees. "Ed, old man! What's wrong?

​But he knew before Hurley answered weakly what was wrong. His hands had gone out, touched Hurley's body and one of them had come away wet and … sticky. … It was a flying bullet from the fight at the Goblet gone wildly astray … No; it couldn't be that; Ed should have been at Indian City long before the firing began.

"I've got two holes in me, Billy," said Hurley faintly as, with his friend's arm about him, he half sat up. "I rather guess I'm done for. … I'm thirsty, Bill … "

A lump was in Steele's throat, a burning, searing rage in his heart. They had shot poor old Ed Hurley down like a dog, and why? Just because he was a friend of Bill Steele, just because …

"He thought I was you," whispered Hurley. "Your hat, you know. … Your horse; couldn't find mine. Broke away I guess. … Get me a drink, will you, Bill?"

Steele ran down to the river, stumbling through the darkness, filled his hat and ran back, cursing Joe Embry at every step he took. When Hurley had drunk eagerly and sank back, Steele put his two arms about him.

"It's not all over with you, Eddie," he said softly. "I won't let it be. And, what's more, she won't let it be!"

"She?" demanded Hurley, wondering.

"That's why I wouldn't let you in on the fight to-night," Steele told him swiftly. "I was sending you ​to Indian city to … Rose! To Rose and little Eddie. They're there; they're as good as well; Dr. Gilchrist …

But Hurley had gripped him hard with both hands, was again sitting up, muttering:

"Rose, here! And Eddie!"

"They'll be here as fast as they can come," cried Steele. "They are in Indian City; were going to surprise you. Dr. Gilchrist came up with them and Bobbie Carruthers and Sylvia. You just lie still a minute … "

With great running strides he was back at the cabin, jerking the door open, calling to Bill Rice to come with him. And borne tenderly between the two of them Ed Hurley, white faced and unconscious, made the short trip to the bunk across the room from Turk's.

When this second wounded man had been given the rough and ready first aid understood by Steele and Rice, Steele went again to his telephone. Learning that Dr. Gilchrist had already left, he told Carruthers of Hurley's condition; he had found that Hurley had a severe but not dangerous wound in the thigh, and another of more threatening nature in the side. Hurley had lost a lot of blood, but unless he was bleeding internally that was stopped now. And if Rose could come …

As he left the telephone and came back to Hurley's side Steele's eyes met a pair of eyes lifted to his questioningly; not only had consciousness come back to the wounded man, but with it understanding of what had been said. Steele nodded at him reassuringly.

​"She's coming, Eddie, old man," he said gently. "Rose will be here before you know it."

Whereupon Hurley sighed and closed his eyes again and lay still, seeking to hold what strength was still in him against the coming of his wife. He wanted to ask if she were bringing Eddie with her … but of course she wouldn't on a night like this …

"Joe Embry got him," Steele explained softly to Rice and Turk. "Thought he was getting me. Hurley had my hat on, put on my coat before he left the shack here, went down and saddled my horse."

Bill Rice nodded slowly, his eyes dark with rage.

"Hurley's bad hurt," he said softly, guarding his words from his former employer's ears. "I don't believe he's goin' to stick it out until she comes. … Sure it was Embry, Bill?"

"That's the hell of it all!" cried Steele, his two big fists going white as they lay on his lap. "I'm not sure of anything! But who else could it be?"

"I wish," murmured Turk plantively, "that I knowed who rolled that rock on my legs! … Give me another shot of hooch, one of you two Bills, will you?"

A long night for Steele and Rice, held in anxious inaction; for Turk Wilson whose injured leg pained him sorely; and for Ed Hurley an eternity to drag heavily by before the first light of a pale dawn. He had set himself the task of living and retaining full consciousness until Rose came to him … Rose and, possibly, little Eddie. Manfully he sought to shut out of his heart all bitterness at the thought that it might be that ​as they came triumphant from their long fight with their dreadful sickness, triumphant because of the goodness of God and the skill of Dr. Gilchrist, he was to be drawn from them into the dread shadow from which they were emerging. This he struggled to ignore, filling his mind with thoughts of his wife and little boy won back to health, seeking through the hours of waiting to picture them as they would look now.

He shook his head when Steele asked softly if he were suffering unbearably; he nodded when water was proffered him; he spoke not at all, harbouring his strength, until his ears heard the faint drumming of horses' hoofs. Then he drew Steele toward him with a look and said quietly:

"They're coming! … I wanted to tell you first; I think it was Embry that got me. Can't swear to it, but some one shot twice and as I went down said, 'Damn you, Steele; take that to hell with you.' Couldn't make him out but his voice … sounded like Embry's. … Prop me up a little now, Bill. I want to see her when she comes in."

But it was Dr. Gilchrist, not Rose Hurley. A quick eyed, nervous looking man of middle age, who while setting down his bag and jerking off his coat was commanding a basin of water and another lamp lighted if they had one.

"Now," he said briskly, "who's needing me first?"

Steele pointed to Ed Hurley's bunk and for a moment turned away, staring out into a world of pale light and thinning shadows, thinking regretfully how, just to save Ed to Rose and Eddie he had sent him out to ​take his own place before a cowardly attack. Then, his lips set in a hard and whitening line, he swung about again, his eyes clinging to the physician's face.

But the face of Dr. Gilchrist told nothing. With steady, sure fingers he made his examination in a silence so profound that the breathing of the men who watched him sounded unnaturally harsh. Presently he straightened up and with puckered brows turned to Turk Wilson.

"Is Rose coming?" asked Hurley anxiously. "Will I stick it out until she gets here?"

"Where are you hurt?" Gilchrist was demanding of Turk. "Leg, eh? Hurts, does it? Well, I guess it does! No; bone's all right but … What the devil have you fellows been up to anyway? Soon as you hear there is a doctor in twenty miles of you you go to doing this sort of thing, do you?"

Hurley sank back with a sigh and closed his eyes. But he opened them a few minutes later, turned them pleadingly to Steele. There were other hammering hoofs out there, bringing their message through the brightening dawn … bringing Rose?

Steele, understanding, went to the door. But Gilchrist was before him.

"I want a word with Mrs. Hurley first," he said sharply. And Steele gave way for him, coming back to Hurley's side.

Then came Rose Hurley, a little, thin wisp of a girl-woman with great shining eyes in which the tears already stood. And seeing no man of them all save the one who lifted himself and held out his arms and called ​huskily to her, she ran to him and went down on her knees and put her two arms about him, whispering over and over in his ear:

"You are going to get well, Eddie. You are going to be all right! Dr. Gilchrist told me … he wanted me to be the first one to tell you … and he is the most wonderful man in the world … except my dear Boy Eddie. … And look, Eddie; look!"

Little Eddie Hurley, six years old, stared about him with the wondering eyes of six. Gravely he came forward to his mother's side.

"Are you my daddy?" he asked. And when a little joyous cry from the wounded man assured him that he was and a freed arm went out toward him, Eddie Hurley, Junior, offered the little rosebud of his mouth to be kissed by his father. And with their arms about one another Hurley and Rose and little Eddie were drawn very close together.

Steele, swinging about swiftly, went outside. As he went the roughened back of his big hand was drawn across his eyes … he had seen that Bill Rice had turned his back and was picking with a big fingernail at a splinter of the wall while Turk was suddenly taken with the imperious desire to give all of his attention to the carving of a generous cut of tobacco from his plug.

"Sure he'll get well," chuckled Dr. Gilchrist. "I'm not saying that it isn't a close squeak; I'm not saying that he'd make the riffle if I wasn't here to lend a hand; but most of all, Mr. Steele, I'm not saying that he'd ​live through it if Rose Hurley wasn't his wife! That little woman … why, man alive, with all the fight she's got in that little body of hers, she won't let him die! Not even if he wanted to. … Got any bacon and coffee? Haven't had an appetite like this for ten years!"