When he arose Santry, who had watched him as a cat watches a mouse, forced himself to speak, for his throat and mouth were dry as a bone.
"Well, Doc, how about it?"
"Oh, he won't die this time; but he may lie there for some weeks. So far as I can tell the bullet just grazed the spinal cord, and it's the shock of that which makes him so quiet now. A fraction of an inch closer and he would have died or been paralyzed, a cripple, probably for life. At is it, however, barring the possibility of infection, he should pull through. The bullet passed straight through the body without injury to any vital organ, and there is no indication of severe internal hemorrhage."
Santry moistened his lips with his tongue and shook his head heavily.
"What gets me," he burst out, "is that Gawd A'mighty could 'a' let a skunk like Moran do a thing like that! And then"—his voice swelled as though the words he was about to utter exceeded the first—"and then let the varmint get away from me!"
Dr. Catlin nodded sympathy with the statement and turned to Dorothy. She had been anxiously searching his face to discover if he were encouraging them unduly, and when she felt that he was not stretching the facts a tremendous weight was lifted from her mind.
"You are going to stay here?" he asked.
"Yes; oh, yes!" she answered.
"That's good." He opened his medicine case and mixed a simple antipyretic. "I'll explain what you're to do then. After that you better lay down and try to sleep. Wade won't need much for some days, except good nursing."