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Rh 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