"Reckon we're here," said Pete as the cab stopped.
"And I reckon you're glad of it. As I was saying, we been having quite a visit—getting acquainted. Now if you haven't done anything the law can hold you for, the more I know about what you have done the better it will be for you. Think that over. If you can prove you didn't kill Brent, then it's up to me to find out who did. Get a good sleep. I'll drift round sometime to-morrow."
Back in his room Pete lay trying to grasp the full significance of the little bank-book in his pocket. He wondered who would stop him if he were to walk out of the hospital that evening or the next morning, and leave town. He got up and strode nervously back and forth, fighting a recurrent temptation to make his escape.
He happened to glance in the mirror above the washstand. "That's the only fella that kin stop me," he told himself. And he thought of Ed Brevoort and wondered where Brevoort was, and if he were in need of money.
Dr. Andover, making his afternoon rounds, stepped in briskly, glanced at Pete's flushed face, and sitting beside him on the cot, took his pulse and temperature with that professional celerity that makes the busy physician. "A little temperature. Been out today?"
"For a couple of hours."
Andover nodded. "Well, young man, you get right into bed."
The surgeon closed the door. Pete undressed grumblingly.
"Now turn over. I want to look at your back. M-mm! Thought so. A little feverish. Did you walk much?"
"Nope! We took a rig. I was with the sheriff."