The Long Chance Part 8

She gathered the reins in her left hand and swung aboard Friar Tuck. Harley P., having disposed of his gory burden on the limited accommodations of the track velocipede, seized the levers and trundled away, followed by Donna on Friar Tuck, cautiously picking his way between the ties.

Borax O'Rourke stood for a moment, gazing after them.

"She acts like a mother cat with a kitten" he muttered. "d.a.m.ned if she wasn't kissin' the feller--an' him a stranger in town!"

He walked rapidly back to San Pasqual, and such was his perturbation that he sought to have "Doc" Taylor unravel the puzzle for him.

"Hysterics" was the doctor's explanation.

"Rats" retorted O'Rourke.

"All right, then. It's rats." The doctor grabbed his emergency grip and departed on the run for the Hat Ranch. Sam Singer met him half-way with the velocipede.

O'Rourke returned to the Silver Dollar saloon where, since he was a vulgarian and a numbskull, he retailed his story to the loungers there a.s.sembled.

"I'll never git over the sight o' that girl a-kissing that young feller"

he concluded. "Why, I'd down a hobo every mornin' before breakfast if I knowed for certain she'd treat _me_ that-a-way for doin' it."

The situation was canva.s.sed at considerable length, and only the entrance of the constable with a request, for volunteers to help him remove the "remainders" that were littering up the right of way below town, served to turn the conversation into other channels.

Upon their arrival at the Hat Ranch a shout from Harley P. Hennage brought Sam Singer and Soft Wind to the front gate. Donna dismounted, tying Friar Tuck to the "zephyr" by the simple process of dropping the reins over his head, and hurried into the house to prepare her mother's old room for the reception of the wounded man. Bob McGraw was very limp and white as Harley P. and the Indian carried him in. The gambler undressed him while Sam Singer sprang aboard the velocipede and sped back toward town to meet the doctor.

When the doctor arrived, he and Harley P. Hennage went into the bedroom, closing the door after them. Donna remained in the kitchen. She had already ordered Soft Wind to light a fire in the range and heat some water, and when presently the gambler came out to the kitchen he nodded his appreciation of her forethought ere he disappeared again with the hot water and a basin.

In about an hour Doctor Taylor emerged, grip in hand.

"I've done all I can for him, Miss Corblay" he told her. "I'm going up town to close the drug store and get a few things I may need, but I'll be back within an hour and spend the balance of the night with him."

"Will he live?"

Donna's voice was calm, her tones hinting of nothing more than a friendly interest and sympathy; yet Harley P., watching her over the doctor's shoulder, guessed the stress of emotion under which she strove, for he, too, had seen her kiss Bob McGraw as he lay unconscious in her arms.

"I fear he will not. The bullet ranged upward, perforating the top of his right lung, and went on clean through. I've seen men recover from wounds in more vital parts, but a .45-caliber bullet did the trick to our young friend, and a .45 tears quite a hole. He's big and strong and has a fighting chance, but I'm afraid--very much afraid--of internal hemorrhage, and traumatic pneumonia is bound to set in."

"He will not die!" said Donna.

The doctor looked at her curiously. "I hope not" he said. "But he'll need a trained nurse and the best of care to pull through. It's long odds."

"That young feller's middle name is Long Odds." Mr. Hennage had arrived at the conclusion that Donna needed a great deal of comforting at that moment. "He's lived on long odds ever since he came into this country."

"How do you know, Hennage?" the doctor demanded. "I tell--"

"Long odds an' long guns, like birds o' feather always flock together"

the gambler answered him drily, "This young feller wouldn't feel that he was gettin' any joy out o' life if he didn't tackle the nub end o'

the deal. I'm layin' even money he comes up to the young lady's expectations."

Donna thanked him with her eyes, and Harley P. crossed to the door and looked down the long patio to where a small white wooden cross gleamed through the festoons of climbing roses.

"He ought to have a nurse" the doctor advised Donna.

"Very well, doctor. You will telephone to Bakersfield, or Los Angeles, will you not, and engage one?"

"I don't think our patient can afford the expense. Hennage frisked him and all the money--"

"Thank you, I will attend to the financial side of this case, Doctor Taylor."

Mr. Hennage turned from his survey of the patio.

"Doc," he complained, "it's time for you to move out o' San Pasqual.

You've stayed too long already. You're gettin' the San Pasqual sperrit, Doc. You ain't got no sympathy for a stranger."

"Well, you don't expect me to put up twenty-five a week and railroad fare--"

"Never mind worryin' about what you've got to put up with, Doc. If you know all the things I put up with--thanks, Doc. Hurry back, and don't forget to 'phone for that nurse."

"Ain't it marvelous how a small camp always narrers the point o' view?"

the gambler observed when the doctor had gone. "Always thinkin' o'

themselves an' money, A man in my business, Miss Donna, soon learns that mighty few men--an' women, too--will stand the acid. That young feller inside (he jerked a fat thumb over his shoulder) will stand it. I know.

I've applied the acid. An' you'll stand the acid, too," he added--"when Mrs. Pennycook hears you kissed Bob McGraw. Ouch! That woman's tongue drips corrosive sublimate."

Donna blushed furiously.

"You--you--won't tell, will you, Mr. Hennage?"

"Of course not. But that chuckleheaded roughneck O'Rourke will. Why did you kiss him? I ain't one o' the presumin' kind, but I'd like to know, Miss Donna."

"I kissed him"--Donna commenced to cry and hid her burning face in her hands. "I kissed him because--because--I thought he was dying--and he was the first man--that looked at--me so different. And he was so brave, Mr. Hennage--"

"That you thought he was a man an' worth the kiss, eh, Miss Donna?"

"I guess that's the explanation" she confessed, the while she marveled inwardly that she should feel such relief at unburdening her secret to the worst man in San Pasqual.

"If some good woman had only done that for me" the gambler murmured a little wistfully. "If she only had! But of course this young Bob, he's different from--what I was at his age--"

"I couldn't help it" Donna sobbed; "he's one of the presuming kind."

Harley P. sat down and laughed until his three gold teeth almost threatened to fall out.

"G.o.d bless your sweet soul, Miss Donna," he gasped, "go in and kiss him again! He needs you worse than he does a nurse. Go in an' kiss the presumin' cuss."

"You're making fun of me" Donna charged.

"I'm not. Can't a low-down, no-account man like me even laugh where there's happiness? Why, if that young feller goes to work an' spoils it all by kickin' the bucket, I'd die o' grief."

"You know him, do you not?"

"I should say so."