Childress grinned reassuringly, pleased beyond measure at her snap-of-the-hammer sympathy. "I've done everything possible," he said. "The wound don't hurt. Probably there will be no permanent scar. But above all else, let me absolve Murdock and his men. They had nothing to do with this. I did not see any of them yesterday. I doubt if they knew I had been to the ranch until they found Silver in your home stable."
"Then it must have been that shifty widow's outfit that got you," she flared, after a long inquiring look that convinced her he was not absolving his enemies who rode the Gallegher brand just to save her trouble. "You'll have to spin an iron-clad excuse, Jack, before I'll forgive you for letting any of that Rafter bunch catch you napping." She paused a moment—a pause he did not interrupt, being entirely too busy identifying the emotions that played across her face. "Strange," she went on, more to herself than to him, "strange they should hit on the same ordeal that our busters had. That Tom Fitzrapp must have been talking to Murdock. Will you climb down off that horse, brother, and let a woman have a look at what has happened? Men are worse than babies when it comes to looking after their wounds."
Sergt. Childress obeyed, already convinced that in the end he would make a clean breast of exactly what had happened.
"Be careful," he admonished as she started to unwind the bandage.
She frowned at him. "You're worse than a child with a cut finger," she chided. "I'm not going to hurt you, son."
"I meant be careful with the bandage—it's all I've got with me."
"I'll take care of that," she assured him and went on removing clumsily fixed pins, each of which she saved in the sleeve of her shirt, as though in a pincushion.
At last the bandage was off and she stood back to observe the havoc wrought his brow. She stared a moment; then transferred her gaze to the bandage.
"Didn't you have any salve—any ointment?" she demanded.
"Would that have been good for—for what ails me?" he answered with a cheerful question of his own. "Does the horseshoe effect meet with your artistic approval?"