“At least I will stand by what I said to you a little while back,” the Governor said; “that is, in the matter of remuneration, if you pull him through.”
“All of that in its proper place,” said the doctor. “I am going back to Comanche now to send for the 328 boy’s mother,” the Governor announced, “and telegraph to Cheyenne for the doctor of whom I spoke. I have known him for many years. I’ll have some more tents and camp-supplies sent out, and anything that you stand in need of which can be procured in Comanche.”
Dr. Slavens gave him a list of articles needed in the patient’s case, and the Governor rode away. The undertaker from Comanche arrived a little later, and took Hun Shanklin’s body up from the ground. When his wagon, on its return to Comanche, had passed the tent where Agnes was trying to sleep, she got up and joined Dr. Slavens.
“I couldn’t sleep,” she explained. “Every time I shut my eyes I could see that poor old gambler’s body lying there with the coat over his face!”
“I don’t feel either pity or pain in his case,” said the doctor; “or, when it comes to that, for the other one, either.”
“Well, you couldn’t have prevented it, anyway,” she sighed.
“And wouldn’t have if I could,” he declared. “I looked on them as one poison fighting another, as we set them to do in the human system. When one overcomes the other, and the body throws them both out, health follows.”
“Do you think Jerry will recover?”
“There’s a chance for him,” he replied.
“For his mother’s sake I hope he will,” she said. “I went to see her, remembering in the midst of my 329 distress her kind face and gentle heart. I’m glad that I went, although my mission failed.”