“His horse isn’t used to automobiles, and so when it met this one—” “I got off,” interposed Reddy hastily, displaying a complexion like a boiled beet. “He got off,” Mac explained gravely to the increasing audience. Denver nodded with an imperturbable face. “He got off.” Mac introduced Miss Messiter to such of her employés as were on hand. “Shake hands with Miss Messiter, Missou,” was the formula, the name alone varying to suit the embarrassed gentlemen in leathers. Each of them in turn presented a huge hand, in which her little one disappeared for the time, and was sawed up and down in the air like a pump-handle. Yet if she was amused she did not show it; and her pleasure at meeting the simple, elemental products of the plains outweighed a great deal her sense of the ludicrous. “How are your patients getting along?” she presently asked of her foreman. “I reckon all right. I sent Reddy for a doc, but—” “He got off,” murmured Mac pensively. “I’ll go rope another hawss,” put in the man who had got off. “Get a jump on you, then. Miss Messiter, would you like to look over the place?” “Not now. I want to see the men that were hurt. Perhaps I can help them. Once I took a few weeks in nursing.” “Bully for you, ma’am,” whooped Mac. “I’ve a notion those boys are sufferin’ for a woman to put the diamond-hitch on them bandages.” “Bring that suit-case in,” she commanded Denver, in the gentlest voice he had ever heard, after she had made a hasty inspection of the first wounded man. From the suit-case she took a little leather medicine-case, the kind that can be bought already prepared for use. It held among other things a roll of medicated cotton, some antiseptic tablets, and a little steel instrument for probing. “Some warm water, please; and have some boiling on the range,” were her next commands. Mac flew to execute them. It was a pleasure to see her work, so deftly the skillful hands accomplished what her brain told them. In admiring awe the punchers stood awkwardly around while she washed and dressed the hurts. Two of the bullets had gone through the fleshy part of the arm and left clean wounds. In the case of the third man she had to probe for the lead, but fortunately found it with little difficulty. Meanwhile she soothed the victim with gentle womanly sympathy. “I know it hurts a good deal. Just a minute and I’ll be through.” His hands clutched tightly the edges of his bunk. “That’s all right, doc. You attend to roping that pill and I’ll endure the grief.” A long sigh of relief went up from the assembled cowboys when she drew the bullet out. The sinewy hands fastened on the wooden bunk relaxed suddenly. “’Frisco’s daid,” gasped the cook, who bore the title of Wun Hop for no reason except that he was an Irishman in a place formerly held by a Chinese. “He has only fainted,” she said quietly, and continued with the antiseptic dressing.