It was a long time before the bunk house quieted. Curly, faint with weariness, lay down and tried to sleep. His arm was paining a good deal and he felt feverish. The men of the Circle C and their guests sat down and argued the whole thing over. But after a time the doctor came in and had the patient carried to the house. He was put in a good clean bed and his arm dressed again. The doctor brought him good news. "Cullison is doing fine. He has dropped into a good sleep. He'd ought to make it all right." Curly thought about the girl who had fought for his life. "You'll not let him die, Doc," he begged. "He's too tough for that, Luck Cullison is." Presently Doctor Brown gave him a sleeping powder and left him. Soon after that Curly fell asleep and dreamed about a slim dark girl with fine longlashed eyes that could be both tender and ferocious. CHAPTER IV THE CULLISONS Curly was awakened by the sound of the cook beating the call to breakfast on a triangle. Buck was standing beside the bed. "How're they coming this glad mo'ning, son?" he inquired with a grin. "Fine and dandy," grinned back Flandrau. So he was, comparatively speaking. The pain in his arm had subsided. He had had a good sleep. And he was lying comfortably in a clean bed instead of hanging by the neck from the limb of one of the big cottonwoods on the edge of the creek. A memory smote him and instantly he was grave again. "How is Cullison?" "Good as the wheat, doc says. Mighty lucky for Mr. C. Flandrau that he is. Say, I'm to be yore valley and help you into them clothes. Git a wiggle on you." Buck escorted his prisoner over to the ranch mess house. The others had finished breakfast but Maloney was still eating. His mouth was full of hot cakes, but he nodded across at Curly in a casual friendly way. "How's the villain in the play this mo'ning?" he inquired. Twenty-one usually looks on the cheerful side of life. Curly had forgotten for the moment about what had happened to his friend Mac. He did not remember that he was in the shadow of a penitentiary sentence. The sun was shining out of a deep blue sky. The vigor of youth flowed through his veins. He was hungry and a good breakfast was before him. For the present these were enough. "Me, I'm feeling a heap better than I was last night," he admitted. "Came pretty near losing him out of the cast, didn't we?" "Might a-turned out that way if the stage manager had not remembered the right cue in time." Curly was looking straight into the eyes twinkling across the table at him. Maloney knew that the young fellow was thanking him for having saved his life. He nodded lightly, but his words still seemed to make a jest of the situation. "Enter the heroine. Spotlight. Sa-a-ved," he drawled. The heart of the prisoner went out to this man who was reaching a hand to him in his trouble. He had always known that Maloney was true and steady as a snubbing post, but he had not looked for any kindness from him.