He found Quin pretty sick, but smoking all the same. He was partially stripped and he had plastered the wound till help came with a large pad of blotting paper, which was nearly as primitive as spiders' webs.
"Well, I got it, doc'," said Quin.
Jupp shook his head again.
"You'll never learn sense, I suppose. Let's look. What was the weapon?"
They showed him a pickareen, a half-headed pick of bright steel some six inches long.
"Lucky for you it wasn't an inch nearer," said Jupp, "or you would have had froth in this blood!"
Quin knew what he meant. In any case it was a nasty wound, for part of it was ripped open. Nevertheless Quin smoked all the time that Jupp washed and dressed it, and said "Thank you" pleasantly enough when the job was over.
"Go home and lie down," said Jupp. "I'll be up in an hour and see the cause of the war."
So Quin, with the help of a clerk in the office, found his way home to Jenny. As he went he saw Mac coming down the road with long strides and waited to hear what they said of Pete.
"Will he go up the flume?" asked Quin, using a common Western idiom.