Page:Short Grass (1926).pdf/286

 MacKinnon didn't know what to do. He hesitated to run the risk of throwing Dunham into a relapse through worry and watchfulness by telling him, putting a gun on the bed by his side, and giving him to understand that he might be called on any night to fight for the remnant of life that was in his veins.

But there didn't appear to be anything else to do. He would lay down his own life, MacKinnon said modestly, yet with such sincerity there could be no question of his valor, to protect his guest, but they wouldn't stop at one more life to have their evil way.

There was feeling against MacKinnon among the lawless element that had burrowed there under Kellogg's protection, the outgrowth of his efforts to argue the mob out of its design the day Dunham was cooped in the freight car. He had escaped with his life that day only by pulling out and leaving them to have their way, and he didn't want to go through anything like that again. The worry of it was wasting the heart of him in his busum like a cup of spirits left standin' in the sun, MacKinnon said. His face showed the strain of his worries. It was lined and sad, and his gray hairs had multiplied.

Mrs. Moore resolved the tangle of MacKinnon's troubles by proposing to take Dunham to the pea-green mansion on the bank of the Arkansas, nurse and all. They brought the doctor into the friendly plot to help argue down Dunham's scruples, for he was against going. It would give them too much trouble, he said, although there was another and deeper reason that re-