"But Brit Hunter's hurt bad, so a doctor must come quick, or I think he maybe will die. It takes too long to ride a horse to Echo from this ranch, so I call on my mother, and I tell my mother a doctor must come quick to this ranch. So my mother sends a telephone to this doctor in Shoshone, and he comes. That is all. But I would not like it if everybody maybe finds it out that I do that, and makes talk about it."
He looked straight at Jim and Sorry, and those two unprepossessing ones looked at each other and at Swan and at the doctor and at each other again, and headed for the door. But Swan was leaning against it, and his eyes were on them. "I would like it if you say somebody rides to get the doctor," he hinted quietly.
Sorry looked at Jim. "I rode like hell," he stated heavily. "I leave it to Jim."
"You shore'n hell did!" Jim agreed, and Swan removed his big form from the door.
"You boys goin' over t' Spirit Canyon?" Frank wanted to know.
"Yeah," said Sorry, answering for them both, and they went out, giving Swan a sidelong look of utter bafflement as they passed him. Talking by the thought route from Spirit Canyon to Boise City was evidently a bit too much for even their phlegmatic souls to contemplate with perfect calm.
"They'll keep it to theirselves, whether they believe it or not," Frank assured Swan in his laboured whisper. "It don't go down with me. I ain't supe'stitious enough fer that."
"The doctor he comes, don't he?" Swan retorted. "I shall go back now and milk the cows and do chores."
"But if your shoulder is lame, Swan, how can you?" Lorraine asked in her unexpected fashion.
Swan swallowed and looked helplessly at the doctor, who stood smoothing his chin. "The muscle strain is not serious," he said calmly. "A little gentle exercise will prevent further trouble, I think." Whereupon he turned abruptly to the door of the other room, glanced in at Brit and beckoned Lorraine with an upraised finger.