"That's what I thought, and what I told Jeffard when he hinted at the thing. But we were both off; and that brings me to the other happening. After we'd smoked over it--Jeffard and I--we went around and hunted up Lansdale's doctor. The medicine-man agreed with me that it was the only chance, but he didn't give us much encouragement. Said it was a forlorn hope, with the odds against Lansdale; that he'd die if he didn't go, and would probably die if he did. Jeffard had been in and out of his shell two or three times since the beginning of it, but he came out again at that and stayed out. Said he owed Lansdale, and that would be a good way to wipe out the account. I told him that wouldn't go; that if he wanted to do Lansdale a good turn, he'd have to do it on its merits. 'I sha'n't be such a fool as to tell Lansdale I'm trying to square up with him,' says he. 'You go and persuade him.'" Myra's hand was on his knee. "You poor boy!" she said; "they always unload the thankless things on you, don't they? Did you try?" "Sure. If I'd felt like hanging back, a sight of Lansdale would have done the business for me. It's awful, little woman. I've seen dead men, and men that were going to die, but never a dying one that wanted so hard to live. Of course, he kicked clear over the traces when I proposed it, though I lied like a whitehead, and tried to make him believe it was my scheme to help Jeffard get cured of his case of mental and moral 'jimmies.' When that failed, I dug right down to hard-pan. 'You want to live, don't you?' said I, and when he admitted it, I biffed him square on the point of the jaw. Says I, 'Then it's a question of your stiff-necked New England pride against your love for a little girl who would give her right hand to see you well and strong, is it? You're not as good a man as I thought you were.'" Myra was moved to protest. "Oh, Dick! I do hope you haven't taken too much for granted! But go on; what did he say?" "I thought he'd rise up and fall on me at first; but he didn't. He mumbled something about the 'precious balms of a friend breaking his head,' and said I was altogether mistaken; that Connie was only an angel of mercy, one of God's little ones, and a few other things of that sort." "'Only'!" laughed Myra.