Swiftly, but Norton marked with what skilful fingers, she removed the bandage and made her examination. Norton, squatting upon his heels at her side, holding the lantern, after one frowning look at the wound, kept his eyes fixed upon her face. Brocky Lane was near his death and the sheriff knew it after that one look; his life lay, perhaps, in the hands of this girl. Norton had brought her when he might have brought Patten. Had he chosen wrongly?
He had noted her hands before; now they seemed to him the most wonderful hands ever possessed by either man or woman, strong, sure, quick, sensitive, utterly capable. He thought of Caleb Patten's hands, thick, a little inclined to be flabby.
"Open that bottle," she directed coolly. "One tablet into the water. That box has cotton and gauze in it . . . don't touch them! I want everything clean; just open the box and set it where I can get it."
One by one she gave her directions and the man obeyed swiftly and unquestioningly. He watched her probe the wound, saw her eyes narrow, knew that she had made her diagnosis. As she washed the ugly hole in the flesh and made her own bandage Brocky Lane was wincing, his eyes again open. Both men were watching her now, the same look in each eager pair of eyes. But until she had done and, with Norton's help, had made Lane as comfortable as possible upon his crude bed, she gave no answer to their mute pleading. Then she sat down upon the stone floor, caught her knees up in her clasped hands, and looked long and searchingly into Brocky Lane's face. The cowboy struggled with his muscles and triumphed over them, summoning a sick grin as he muttered:
"You're mighty good to take all this trouble. . . . I'm sure a hundred times obliged. . . ."
"And," she cut in abruptly, "you mean to tell me that you shot that man after he had put this hole in you? And then you made him crawl out of the brush and come to you?"
"I sure did," grunted Brocky. "And if my aim hadn't been sort of bad, me being all upset this way, I wouldn't have just winged old Moraga that way, either! When he's all cured up and I'm all well again. . . ."
Then he broke off and again his eyes, like Norton's, asked their question. This time she answered it, speaking slowly and thoughtfully.
"Mr. Brocky Lane, I congratulate you on three things, your physique first, your luck second, and third, your nerve. They are a combination that is hard to beat. I am very much inclined to the belief that in a month or so you'll be about as good as new."
Norton expelled a deep breath of relief; he realized suddenly that whatever this gray-eyed, strong-handed girl had said would have had his fullest credence. Brocky's grin grew a shade less strained.