He unknotted his bandana and with it mopped his face to a semblance of
cleanliness.

"It was the ridin' that done it," he explained, shame-faced. "You put a
man on a hoss for a certain time, and after a while he gets so he can't
think. He's sort of nutty. That was the way with me when I come in."

"Open the window on the veranda," said Joe Cumberland. "I want to feel
the wind."

The doctor obeyed the instruction, and again he noted that same quiet,
contented smile on the lips of the old man. For some reason it made him
ill at ease to see it.

"He won't get here for eight or ten hours," went on Buck Daniels, easing
himself into a more comfortable position, and raising his head a little
higher. "Ten hours more, even if he does come. That'll give me a chance
to rest up; right now I'm kind of shaky."

"A condition, you will observe, in which Mr. Barry will also be when he
arrives," remarked the doctor.

"Shaky?" grinned Buck Daniels. "M'frien', you don't know that bird!" He
sat up, clenching his fist. "And if Dan _does_ come, he can't affo'd to
press me too far! I'll take so much, and then----"

He struck his fist on the arm of the chair.

"Buck!" cried Kate Cumberland. "Are you mad? Have you lost your reason?
Would you _face_ him?"