The doctor obeyed the instruction, and again he noted that same quiet, contented smile on the lips of the old man. For some reason it made him ill at ease to see it.
"He won't get here for eight or ten hours," went on Buck Daniels, easing himself into a more comfortable position, and raising his head a little higher. "Ten hours more, even if he does come. That'll give me a chance to rest up; right now I'm kind of shaky."
"A condition, you will observe, in which Mr. Barry will also be when he arrives," remarked the doctor.
"Shaky?" grinned Buck Daniels. "M'frien', you don't know that bird!" He sat up, clenching his fist. "And if Dan does come, he can't affo'd to press me too far! I'll take so much, and then——"
He struck his fist on the arm of the chair.
"Buck!" cried Kate Cumberland. "Are you mad? Have you lost your reason?
Would you face him?"
Buck Daniels winced, but he then shook his head doggedly.
"He had his chance down in Brownsville," he said. "And he didn't take it. Why? Because my back was turned? Well, he could of got in front of me if he'd been terrible anxious. I've seen Dan in action; he's seen me in action! Maybe he's seen too much. They've been stranger things than that, in this world!" He hitched his belt so that the butt of his revolver came farther forward. But now Kate Cumberland advised: "Buck, you're tired out; you don't know what you're saying. Better go up to bed."
He flushed a ruddy bronze.
"D'you think I'm jest talkin' words, Kate, to hear myself talk?"