fashion she put out her own for it. "Let me see it."

But for a moment he bestowed upon her merely a slow look of question.

"You don't mean that you are Dr. Page?" he asked. Then, believing that
he understood: "You're the nurse?"

"Is a physician's life in San Juan likely to be so filled with his
duties that he must bring a nurse with him?" she countered. "Yes, I am
Dr. Page."

He noted that she was as defiant about the matter as the Kid had been
about the killing of Bisbee of Las Palmas; plainly she had foreseen
that the type of man-animal inhabiting this out-of-the-way corner of
the world would be likely to wonder at her hardihood and, perhaps, to
jeer.

"I came to-day," she explained in the same matter-of-fact way.
"Consequently you will pardon the looks of things. But I am one of the
kind that believes in hanging out a shingle first, getting details
arranged next. Now may I see the hand?"

"It's hardly anything." He lifted it now for her inspection. "Just a
slight cut, you know. But it's showing signs of infection. A little
antiseptic . . ."

She took his fingers into hers and bent over the wound. He noted two
things, now: what strong hands she had, shapely, with sensitive fingers
ignorant of rings; how richly alive and warmly colored her hair was,
full of little waves and curls.