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Rh 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