"Them rival armies," McCalmont drawled, "will talk theyrselves into fits, and the rival Governments will talk theyrselves into fits; and all the newspapers will talk theyrselves into fits; then they'll agree that La Morita was raided, and they'll agree that it was the acts of wicked robbers, and they'll agree it was me. 'Spose we have our coffee."
All through the night McCalmont had been sitting up with Curly, treating her wound to a course of cold wet bandages once in five minutes to reduce the swelling. After breakfast he went back again to her side, and his teeth were sure set hard, because he had made up his mind to dig for the bullet, which caused her more pain than was needful. As for Jim, he squatted on the doorstep outside, with time at last to think. His affairs had been some hurried and precipitous in this one week, which cost him his parents, his home, his business as master of a tribe of cowboys, his friends, his prospects, his reputation as an honest man. And now the whirlwind had dropped him on the doorstep of a 'dobe shack to think the matter over quietly and have a look at himself. He was an orphan now, poor as a wolf, hunted, desperate, herded with thieves. What was the use of trying to earn an honest living when the first respectable person he met would begin the conversation by shooting him all to pieces?
Then he heard McCalmont calling him: "Say, can yo' lawdship oblige me with the loan of a pin?"
His lordship! The poor chap remembered now that he was Viscount Balshannon, Baron Blandon, and several different sorts of baronets.
"Yo' lawdship!"
"McCalmont," he howled, "you brute!"
Then he heard Curly telling her father to behave himself, and his mind went off grazing again over the range of his troubles. There was that Curly, the famous desperado, the fighting frontiersman, the man who had saved his life—and all of a sudden he had to think of him—of her—as a poor girl crazy with pain. Jim had to face a fact which had hit his very soul, turned the world upside down, and left him wriggling. It was no use being hostile or disappointed; he couldn't make believe he was glad. Curly didn't feel like a chum or a partner now; he couldn't imagine her as any sort of sister or friend. She just filled his life until there was nothing else to care for on earth, and it made his bones ache.
Then McCalmont began to work with some sort of surgical instruments, probing her wound for the bullet. He heard her make little moans, whimpers, and stopped his ears with his fingers. Then she screamed.
Jim was shaking all over, but with that scream he knew what had happened to himself. He had fallen head over ears in love with that same Curly.
After a long time McCalmont came out of the shack and sat down alongside of Jim. The robber was white as a ghost; he was trembling and gulping for breath.