The Ridin' Kid from Powder River Part 53

"Yes, but in your case it was a very difficult and dangerous operation.

I saw that Dr. Andover hardly wanted to take the risk."

"So The Spider pays for everything!" Pete shook his head. "I don't just sabe."

"I saw him watching you once--when you were asleep," said Doris. "He seemed terribly anxious. I was afraid of him--and I felt sorry for him--"

Pete lay back and stared at the opposite wall. "He sure was game!" he murmured. "And he was my friend."

Pete turned his head quickly as Doris stepped toward the door. "Could you git me some of them papers--about The Spider?"

"Yes," she answered hesitatingly, as she left the room.

Pete closed his eyes. He could see The Spider standing beside his bed supported by two internes, dying on his feet, fighting for breath as he told Pete to "see that party--in the letter"--and "that some one had trailed him too close." And "close the cases," The Spider had said.

The game was ended.

When Doris came in again Pete was asleep. She laid a folded newspaper by his pillow, gazed at him for a moment, and stepped softly from the room.

At noon she brought his luncheon. When she came back for the tray she noticed that he had not eaten, nor would he talk while she was there.

But that evening he seemed more like himself. After she had taken his temperature he jokingly asked her if he bit that there little gla.s.s dingus in two what would happen?"

"Why, I'd have to buy a new one," she replied, smiling.

Pete's face expressed surprise. "Say!" he queried, sitting up, "did The Spider pay you for bein' my private nurse, too?"

"He must have made some arrangement with Dr. Andover. He put me in charge of your case."

"But don't you git anything extra for--for smilin' at folks--and--coaxin' 'em to eat--and wastin' your time botherin' around 'em most all day?"

"The hospital gets the extra money. I get my usual salary."

"You ain't mad at me, be you?"

"Why, no, why should I be?"

"I dunno. I reckon I talk kind of rough--and that mebby I said somethin'--but--would you mind if I was to tell you somethin'. I been thinkin' about it ever since you brung that paper. It's somethin'

mighty important--and--"

"Your dinner is getting cold," said Doris.

"Shucks! I jest got to tell somebody! Did you read what was in that paper?"

Doris nodded.

"About that fella called Steve Gary that The Spider b.u.mped off in that gamblin'-joint?"

"Yes."

"Well, if that's right--and the papers ain't got things twisted, like when they said The Spider was my father--why, if it _was_ Steve Gary--I kin go back to the Concho and kind o' start over ag'in."

"I don't understand."

"'Course you don't! You see, me and Gary mixed onct--and--"

Doris' gray eyes grew big as Pete spoke rapidly of his early life, of the horse-trader, of Annersley and Bailey and Montoya, and young Andy White--characters who pa.s.sed swiftly before her vision as she followed Pete's fortunes up to the moment when he was brought into the hospital.

And presently she understood that he was trying to tell her that if the newspaper report was authentic he was a free man. His eagerness to vindicate himself was only too apparent.

Suddenly he ceased talking. The animation died from his dark eyes.

"Mebby it wa'n't the same Steve Gary," he said.

"If it had been, you mean that you could go back to your friends--and there would be no trouble--?"

Pete nodded. "But I don't know."

"Is there any way of finding out--before you leave here?" she asked.

"I might write a letter and ask Jim Bailey, or Andy. They would know."

"I'll get you a pen and paper."

Pete flushed. "Would you mind writin' it for me? I ain't no reg'lar, professional writer. Pop Annersley learned me some--but I reckon Jim could read your writin' better."

"Of course I'll write the letter, if you want me to. If you'll just tell me what you wish to say I'll take it down on this pad and copy it in my room."

"Can't you write it here? Mebby we might want to change somethin'."

"Well, if you'll eat your dinner--" And Doris went for pen and paper.

When she returned she found that Pete had stacked the dishes in a perilous pyramid on the floor, that the bed-tray might serve as a table on which to write.

He watched her curiously as she unscrewed the cap of her fountain pen and dated the letter.

"Jim Bailey, Concho--that's over in Arizona," he said, then he hesitated. "I reckon I got to tell you the whole thing first and mebby you kin put it down after I git through." Doris saw him eying the pen intently. "You didn't fetch the ink," he said suddenly.

Doris laughed as she explained the fountain pen to him. Then she listened while he told her what to say.

The letter written, Doris went to her room. Pete lay thinking of her pleasant gray eyes and the way that she smiled understandingly and nodded--"When most folks," he soliloquized, "would say something or ask you what you was drivin' at."

To him she was an altogether wonderful person, so quietly cheerful, natural, and un.o.btrusively competent . . . Then, through some queer trick of memory, Boca's face was visioned to him and his thoughts were of the desert, of men and horses and a far sky-line. "I got to get out of here," he told himself sleepily. And he wondered if he would ever see Doris Gray again after he left the hospital.

CHAPTER x.x.xIX

A PUZZLE GAME

Dr. Andover, brisk and professionally cheerful, was telling Pete that so far as he was concerned he could not do anything more for him, except to advise him to be careful about lifting or straining--to take it easy for at least a month--and to do no hard riding until the incision was thoroughly healed. "You'll know when you are really fit,"

he said, smiling, "because your back will tell you better than I can.

You're a mighty fortunate young man!"