"What patient does he mean?" asked the sheriff.
"It’s a fellow I helped when I first came out here," answered Ross frankly. He was afraid of the sheriff’s suspicions. "He was hurt in front of Sagehen Roost, and as I know something about surgery I–helped–to fix him up."
The sheriff studied his horse’s ears. A look of perplexity overspread his face. "I heard of that down in Basin. But it seems to me that was before you come." He looked hard at Ross. "The McKenzies said––" He stopped suddenly, and bit his lips.
Ross seized this pause to mutter, "It’s not so long ago," and forged ahead on the trail, taking good care to keep ahead until the lights of Cody and the odor of the Shoshone River–"Stinking Water"–smote their senses together through the gathering darkness of the early December night. Then the sheriff, straightening in his saddle, said in a voice of authority:
"Come back here. We’ll ride neck and neck now."
Ross fell back, and asked his first question, and no sooner was it out than he bit his lips savagely in vexation at his own thoughtlessness.
"Is Mr. Jones stopping at ’The Irma’?"
"Who?" exploded the sheriff.
"Mr. Jones," murmured Ross in confusion.
The sheriff looked the boy over silently but intently in the moonlight. The blood surged into Ross’s face, and, despite the chill of the night wind, the perspiration broke out on his forehead.