O'Rourke returned to the Silver Dollar saloon where, since he was a vulgarian and a numbskull, he retailed his story to the loungers there assembled.
“I'll never git over the sight o' that girl a-kissing that young feller” he concluded. “Why, I'd down a hobo every mornin' before breakfast if I knowed for certain she'd treat me that-a-way for doin' it.”
The situation was canvassed at considerable length, and only the entrance of the constable with a request, for volunteers to help him remove the “remainders” that were littering up the right of way below town, served to turn the conversation into other channels.
Upon their arrival at the Hat Ranch a shout from Harley P. Hennage brought Sam Singer and Soft Wind to the front gate. Donna dismounted, tying Friar Tuck to the “zephyr” by the simple process of dropping the reins over his head, and hurried into the house to prepare her mother's old room for the reception of the wounded man. Bob McGraw was very limp and white as Harley P. and the Indian carried him in. The gambler undressed him while Sam Singer sprang aboard the velocipede and sped back toward town to meet the doctor.
When the doctor arrived, he and Harley P. Hennage went into the bedroom, closing the door after them. Donna remained in the kitchen. She had already ordered Soft Wind to light a fire in the range and heat some water, and when presently the gambler came out to the kitchen he nodded his appreciation of her forethought ere he disappeared again with the hot water and a basin.
In about an hour Doctor Taylor emerged, grip in hand.
“I've done all I can for him, Miss Corblay” he told her. “I'm going up town to close the drug store and get a few things I may need, but I'll be back within an hour and spend the balance of the night with him.”
“Will he live?”
Donna's voice was calm, her tones hinting of nothing more than a friendly interest and sympathy; yet Harley P., watching her over the doctor's shoulder, guessed the stress of emotion under which she strove, for he, too, had seen her kiss Bob McGraw as he lay unconscious in her arms.
“I fear he will not. The bullet ranged upward, perforating the top of his right lung, and went on clean through. I've seen men recover from wounds in more vital parts, but a .45-caliber bullet did the trick to our young friend, and a .45 tears quite a hole. He's big and strong and has a fighting chance, but I'm afraid—very much afraid—of internal hemorrhage, and traumatic pneumonia is bound to set in.”