"Don't fool around with that one in my neck, Doc," Captain Bill said. "Go after the one in the small of my back, and let out the blood. There's a bucket of it sloshin' around in there."
The doctor obeyed orders. It was proper to gratify a dying man.
"Now, Doc," the Ranger Captain said when the operation was over, and the surplus cargo had been removed, "now, I'll get well," and Rhoda McDonald, his nervy wife, who had arrived on the scene, echoed this belief.
"If Bill Jess says he'll get well, he'll do it!" she declared.
But this was a minority opinion, and that night when it was rumored that Captain Bill would not pull through, there were threats that in case he didn't, the two men who had trained with Matthews would be strung up without further notice. Some word of this was brought to Captain Bill, perhaps as a message of comfort.
"Don't you do it, boys," he said. "I'm going to get well, and even if I don't, I want the law to take its course. I'm opposed to lynching."
Matthews died in a few days. He was removed to Childress and died there. Before his death he sent word to McDonald.
"You acted the man all through," was his message. "I'm only sorry that I can't see you and apologize."
"Tell him that I'm doing all right," was the answer returned, "and that I hope he'll get well."
The mending of Captain Bill was a slow process. For about two months he was laid up, and then with his wife he sojourned for a time at a sanitarium. After that, he was up once more, pale and stooped but ready and eager for action. In time he was apparently as fit as ever; though, in truth, the physical repairing was never quite complete.