It was an uphill pull for Bill Dunham, lying in MacKinnon's hotel with fever in his wounds. A little puff of an adverse wind, and out the flickering blue flame would go, the doctor said. When it seemed at its lowest, like the failing light of an empty lamp, nature turned up the wick and lighted Bill Dunham over the grade.
Hughes had gone on to market with his herd, but he had left funds with MacKinnon to insure Dunham having the best of everything that money could provide in a bleak and comfortless place like Pawnee Bend, where men lived roughly and died with the bits in their mouths. A surgeon was brought from Wichita to operate for the complication that followed the leakage of blood into that tight compartment where blood never should be permitted to go sloshing around that way. A nurse was brought from the same center of culture and progress; she was as much of a sight as a zebra loose on the street in Pawnee Bend would have been when she walked out for a little airing in her white dress and cap.
John Moore was also taking a friendly interest in the wounded man. Moore was proud of the distinction he had come into through Dunham's singling him out for his particular mark at the ford that day. He talked
