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 somebody thought of whisky. It was neither a very long wait nor a very long reach to that. Myron, who took a great cheer out of mortuary matters, and enjoyed an intimate connection with all the grim business attendent and antecedent thereto, poured a little liquor into Cal Withers's mouth, and lifted his head so it 'would run down to the spot where life was lingering in him like a covered coal.

There was virtue in the remedy. Cal Withers presently opened his eyes and looked around him with a dull dawning of perception. Myron applied a little more of the liquor, with growing result.

"Can you speak, Cal?" Myron asked with the officious solicitude of one in charge. "Do you want to leave any word?"

"Where am I shot?" Withers asked, his voice weak and low.

"Right in the center of the brain," Myron replied.

"I'm a dead man!" Withers groaned, falling back, closing his eyes.

Myron let his head down to the pillow,—taking his arm away.

"Yes, Cal, I'm afraid you are," he replied.

Those who stood around, looking with the curious impertinence on the wounded man that healthy and unhurt people invariably are guilty of, even in the presence of death, began to be sorry for Withers. Mrs. Cowgill, who had thought mainly of the sofa up to that moment, began to sob and cry, her emotions lying very shallow, indeed.