Morley chuckled. “I admire your nerve, Doc. You’re pretty much of a man, all in all. But if you’re worrying any at all, which I doubt, I’ll relieve your mind at once. Nothing serious is going to happen to you. We just want you to go with us and perform one of your famous operations on an old desert rat that wants pepping up a little so he can take unto himself a girl-wife. There’s a big fee in it for you and a nice little sum for Leach and me to get out of the country on.”
“Oh, a friend of yours?”
“Well, ‘friend’ is a pretty comprehensive word, Doc. Anyway, we’ve known him a good many years.”
“Well,” said Shonto, after a brooding pause, “I’m sorry, but I haven’t time to perform any operation just now. I’m about the busiest man in the Shinbone Country, I imagine, so you’ll have to excuse me. Later, perhaps.”
“Just as sorry as you are, Doc, but that’s not the way it’s scheduled to come out. Leach and I might have put the matter up to you in an ordinary way if we hadn’t seen you riding down the trail alone to-day. We realize that the rest of your party must be in trouble somewhere up there in the mountains, and that you’re probably going for help. So we decided you wouldn’t listen to reason—and tied your ankles. Sorry to disappoint your friends, but you’re going with us.”
“I’m afraid you’re mistaken,” was Shonto’s brief reply.
“No, not in the least, Doctor Shonto. You’re up against a stacked deck. We’ve got your gun, of course, and, though I suspect that you’re a pretty tough hombre in a hand-to-hand mix-up, you can’t do much with your ankles tied together. So just be reasonable and make the best of it, and you’ll be free the sooner.”
“Humph!”
Dr. Shonto sat upright, thinking. Morley smiled as he noted the feet constantly twitching and straining under the drab blankets.
“I’ll tell you,” said Shonto presently. “Things are in a pretty serious state up in the mountains. A man’s future, if not his life, depends on my getting back to him in time. I’ll compromise with you: I’ll give you my word of honour that, if you’ll let me go and attend to what I have in mind, I’ll come back and perform whatever operation your man wants, charge him nothing, and forget the entire matter.”