When they had parted Buck rode on, the ache in his heart more bitter than before. The words of the sheriff’s song came drifting back out of the storm--the song of Sam Bass. “. . . Sam he is a corpse and six foot under clay.” Buck stayed that night at a line camp, and pushed on the next morning. He kept wondering why Horace had lied. It hung like a sand burr in his thoughts all that day. He stopped late the next afternoon at a horse camp; and because they were short handed, Buck worked there a week. Then he drifted on once more, refusing a cent for his labors. It was the ethics of the grub line that forbade his accepting payment. They had given him and his horse food and shelter. He asked no more, though the work had been hard and he had eaten but two meals each day. Breakfast before they rode away; supper when they came in after dark. He had made the biscuits, helped with the dishes, and split wood, to boot. And he had given them what was left of the whisky. * * * * * Because Rocky Point lay along his route to somewhere south, he rode up there one evening at dusk. A saddled horse was humped in the lee of the shed. Hollow eyed cattle bawled in the corral. No smoke came from the little log cabin. Filled with grave misgivings, Buck Bell stepped into the cabin. The moan of a man in pain came out of its dark interior. He found Cotton Eye lying fully clothed in bed, his leg broken between the ankle and knee. He had been like that since the day before, he told Buck through set teeth. “Horse fell on me, comin’ up the river.” Buck built the fire and made the crippled man as comfortable as possible. Then he took care of the horses and scattered hay for the gaunt cattle. When he came back to the cabin, he hid his fears under a careless banter. “I’ll throw some soup into you, Cotton Eye. And coffee. Now roll over on your back and cuss me while I git this boot cut off. I’ll be as gentle as a cow with her first calf, pardner.” Those men of the frontier were steady of hand and ingenious of brain. Broken bones and gunshot wounds were not uncommon. A man needed to know the rudiments of crude surgery in those days when doctors were few and far between. There was no sleep for either man that night. Buck fashioned a sling to hold the suffering man while he pulled the fractured bone into place. The erstwhile nighthawk groaned. Buck swore softly as he labored. He splinted the leg with stout willow sticks and strips of tanned rawhide saddle strings. Beads of sweat covered the drawn face of Cotton Eye. He lay back, whimpering a little through clenched teeth, sick and faint, but game enough. Buck held a cup of black coffee to his mouth. “She’s all over but the knittin’, pard. Here’s a cigaroot. She’ll hurt like hell fer a spell, but it’s a clean break and orter heal fast. I’ll run the show till you git well.” “I’d ’a’ died if you hadn’t come along, Buck.” “Mebbe.”