"Not so bad, after all," he said cheerily, as he carefully washed the part where the bully's stick had fallen. "Little more than an inch long, and not deep. It won't even send you to bed. Just stay still while I clip the hair away and tidy things up a little."
For ten minutes he busied himself with Joe's head, snipping the hair away all round the ugly wound which Hurley had given our hero; for your city clerk is no fool, and Jack knew that no scalp wound can be safely left unless the hair be removed and thorough cleanliness thus ensured. He produced a little roll of strapping which his thoughtful wife had provided, and, having placed a small dressing over the wound, applied the strips of strapping, getting them to adhere by the simple expedient of lighting a match and heating the adhesive material.
"Now you'll do," he said, surveying his work with some pride. "How do you feel? Giddy, eh?"
Joe felt distinctly giddy and positively sick; for a concussion is often followed by sickness. But he was game, and fought down the feeling heroically; in fact, he struggled to his feet, plunged his hands into his pockets, and actually whistled.
"Showing as you ain't beaten by a long way," said Peter, emerging from the shack and looking with approval at our hero. But there were grave lines about his face, and for a little while he was in close and earnest conversation with his friends. Perhaps an hour later a horseman came galloping towards them, and was hailed with pleasure.
"That you, Mike?" sang out Peter. "I sent along over the 'phone for you, and guessed it wouldn't take you long to reach."
"Horse was already saddled, and me almost mounted when the message came," replied the newcomer, dropping out of his saddle. "I was jest off in the opposite direction, so it war lucky you 'phoned jest then. I rode down to the station, and put horse and self aboard a freighter about to steam out. They dropped me down about opposite here, and I've legged it for all I could. What's the tale?"
A magnificent specimen of humanity he was, this newcomer. Even Joe was not so sick that he could not admire him. For Mike Garner stood six feet in his stockinged feet, nothing less, and was burly in proportion; also he seemed to be as agile as a cat, while none could accuse him of fatness.
His muscular calves filled the soiled and stained butcher boots he wore. A pair of massive thighs swelled his khaki breeches, while the dun-coloured shirt was stretched tight over a brawny chest, open at the neck, and with sleeves rolled to the elbows, exposing a pair of arms tanned to the colour of nut-brown, and swelling with muscle and sinew. In fact, Mike was just a specimen of that fine body of men, the North-west Police of Canada, who, in spite of paucity of numbers, keep law and order in the land. But it is only fair to mention that out in the settlements their task is simple, as a general rule; for your newcomer to Canada, as well as the old settlers, are law-abiding people, given to toil and thrift and not to broiling. However, here and there there is trouble, and Mike had galloped over to investigate the case of Hurley.
"What's the tale?" he asked abruptly, dropping his reins over the big horse's neck and leaving it there unattended, while he came towards the shack rolling a cigarette. "Hurley's broken out, you say. Guessed he might. I've had an eye on him this two years back. There's been complaints of ructions at the shack. We had a man in a month back who said he'd been knocked about."