but he took a chance without hesitation. "A fellow oughtn't to be so
careless when he's got a gun in his hand."

"You're right, seh. In this country of heavy underbrush a man's gun is
liable to go off and hit somebody any time if he ain't careful. You're
in big luck you didn't shoot yourself up a heap worse."

Yeager led the way to his cabin, and offered Phyllis the single chair he
boasted, and the nester a seat on the bed. Sitting beside him, he
examined the wound and washed it.

"Comes to being an invalid I'm a false alarm," Keller said
apologetically. "I didn't want to come, but Miss Sanderson would bring
me."

"She was dead right, too. Time you had ridden twenty miles through the
hot sun with that wound you would have been in a raging fever."

"One way and another I'm quite in her debt."

"That's so," agreed Yeager, intent on his work.

She refused to meet the nester's smile. "Fiddlesticks! You talk mighty
foolish, Jim. I wouldn't go away and leave a wounded dog if I could help
it."

"Suppose the dog were a sheep-killer?" Keller asked with his engaging,
impudent smile.

A dust cloud rose from her skirt under a stroke of the restless quirt.