Thurston was not in the least imposed upon. He turned away his head, pretending to look after the outlaws, and set his teeth together tight. He did not want to act a fool. All at once he grew dizzy and sick, and lay down heavily till the faintness passed. Bob tried to lift himself to his elbow; failing that, he put out a hand and laid it on Thurston's shoulder. “Did they--get you--too?” he queried anxiously. “The damn coyotes!” “It's nothing; just a leg put out of business,” Thurston hurried to assure him. “Where are you hurt, Bob?” “Aw, I ain't any X-ray,” Bob retorted weakly but gamely. “Somewheres inside uh me. It went in my side but the Lord knows where it wound up. It hurts, like the devil.” He lay quiet a minute. “I wish--do yuh feel--like finishing--that song, Bud?” Thurston gulped down a lump that was making his throat ache. When he answered, his voice was very gentle: “I'll try a verse, old man.” “The last one--we'd just come to the last. It's most like church. I--I never went--much on religion, Bud; but when a fellow's--going out over the Big Divide.” “You're not!” Thurston contradicted fiercely, as if that could make it different. He thought he could not bear those jerky sentences. “All right--Bud. We won't fight over it. Go ahead. The last verse.” Thurston eased his leg to a better position, drew himself up till his shoulders rested against the rock and began, with an occasional, odd break in his voice: “I saw the holy city Beside the tideless Sea; The light of God was on its street The gates were open wide. And all who would might enter And no one was denied.” “Wonder if that there--applies--to bone-headed--cowpunchers,” Bob muttered drowsily. “'And all--who would--” Thurston glanced quickly at his face; caught his breath sharply at what he saw there written, and dropped his head upon his arms. And so Park and his men, hurrying to the sound of the shooting, found them in the shadow of the rock. CHAPTER VII. AT THE STEVENS PLACE When the excitement of the outrage had been pushed aside by the insistent routine of everyday living, Thurston found himself thrust from the fascination of range life and into the monotony of invalidism, and he was anything but resigned. To be sure, he was well cared for at the Stevens ranch, where Park and the boys had taken him that day, and Mrs. Stevens mothered him as he could not remember being mothered before. Hank Graves rode over nearly every day to sit beside the bed and curse the Wagner gang back to their great-great-grandfathers and down to more than the third generation yet unborn, and to tell him the news. On the second visit he started to give him the details of Bob's funeral; but Thurston would not listen, and told him so plainly.