Besides Steele, there were three other passengers inside the stage that night. One was the assistant manager of the Embar Ranch, south of Meeteetse. He had been to Omaha with a car-load of cattle. The remaining two were miners whom Steele had picked up in Butte. This much Ross learned from the driver. He learned many other things by listening to the conversation between Hillis, the manager, and Steele, although all the while he was keenly observant of his surroundings.

The stage was bowling along smoothly over a road as level as a floor and flooded by brilliant moonlight. Behind them Cody faded into silvery mist, guarded by the huge shadowy bulks of the Big Horn Mountains. Ahead, houseless and treeless, stretched the shelf until the shimmering mist cut off the sight. And in the distance, so far ahead that sometimes he blended with the mist, rode the horseman in the sheepskin coat.

"Hi, there, Andy," called the ranch-manager; "who is that fellow ahead?"Andy, the driver, turned, and looked down through the open flap into the cavernous darkness of the stage. "Don’t know. Didn’t find out. I have seen fellers, though, that can give more information about themselves per square inch than that same chap ahead there."

"I never saw ’im in these parts before," returned Hillis.

"Nor I." The driver spat over the flank of the right wheeler. "Gid’ep there, Suke, ye slowmy, you! Hike it, old Blue! Git out of this!" And, having thus jogged the energy of the leaders, Andy gave his attention again to Hillis. "Hain’t ever set eyes on that brown chap before. I guessed back there he was bound fer Embar. Looks like a puncher."

"I wish"–the assistant manager of the Embar spoke forcefully–"that he and seven or eight more were bound for the Embar."

"Short of hands, eh?" questioned Andy, whirling his "black snake" so skilfully that the lash missed the heads of the wheelers, and touched the flank of the nigh leader.

"Short of hands?" Steele broke in. "Who isn’t short of hands from Butte to Omaha–especially in Wyoming? I’ve been out two weeks advertising and hunting men, and here I am back again with two only."Ross turned half around in his high seat, and grasped the low back. "Is labor as scarce as that in Miners’ Camp?" he burst out in a brusque, astonished tone which betrayed a personal interest.

"As scarce as diamonds," returned Steele, adding with a laugh, "and almost as expensive."

Andy pushed back his hat, and surveyed his young companion with curiosity. There was a little stir in the coach also.

"It must be"–Amos Steele spoke as if the matter had been debated before–"that you are related to Ross Grant of New York."

"Yes," returned Ross, "I am his son."

He was conscious of becoming an immediate centre of speculation.

"I wondered," remarked Steele, "when I saw your name on the hotel register. Going out to Camp, are you?"

"Yes," Ross hesitated. "In answer to that letter you wrote father for Mr. Weimer."

"Oh!" Steele’s tone was edged with astonishment.

"Come out to see to the work, did ye?" asked Andy.

"Yes."

Andy glanced sidewise, and Ross caught the look of incredulity.

"Expected to hire men to do it, did ye?" That Andy was a general information bureau was due to his faculty for asking questions.

"Yes, I do," emphatically.

The present tense of the reply did not escape the listener’s attention.

"Weimer has tried to hire," volunteered Steele; "but it’s no use."

"Why not?" demanded the boy.

"Well, in the first place, as I said, there hain’t enough men to supply the demand; and, in the second place, no man in his senses is going away over on the Creek, where he’ll be shut in for months, when he can just as well stay down in Camp, and get the same wages."

"Shut in for months?" repeated Ross slowly.

Andy explained. "Along about first of February ye’re shut in fer sartain. Trail fills up, and there’s apt to be snowslides any time on old Crosby."

Ross sat with widening eyes staring out into the moonlight, and wondering with tightening muscles what he was "up against." The vagueness of his father’s knowledge concerning Weimer’s work had not counted in New York. But here, swinging along toward Miners’ Camp with two-thirds of the width of the continent between himself and his friends, Ross realized that this vagueness had put him at a disadvantage.The two men behind him began discussing the cattle market, and the stage slid down the side of the first mesa of the Wyoming bad lands and into the coulee, or dry creek, at the bottom. The level road was left behind. Up hill and down plunged the horses ahead of the rocking, tipping stage. There was no regular road. A dozen tracks showed the differing routes of as many drivers. To Ross it seemed as if destruction were imminent every time they came to the top of one of the short, steep hills. But Andy jammed on the brake hard, and, giving a peculiar little whistle, yelled carelessly, "Git out of this."

Presently Andy took advantage of the rattle of wheels and hoofs to say to Ross: "Steele is boss of the Gale’s Ridge work up to Camp. They keep open all winter; t’other company shuts down."

"Shuts down?" repeated Ross.

"Yep, has to. Men go down t’ Cody t’ work on the Project. Hard work to keep men in Camp through the winter. When the railroad goes up there, ’twill be different."

Some one inside the stage struck a match.

"On time, ain’t you, Andy?" asked Steele’s voice; "it’s twelve-thirty."

"Yep," returned the driver. "Here’s Dry Creek."

The road, a well-defined track here, was hemmed in between a creek-bed on one hand and a hill on the other. On top of the hill, silhouetted against the star-studded sky, appeared a wagon with a white bellying canvas top. Around it, covering the hilltop and the side clear down to the track was a soft white moving mass that caused Ross to give a startled exclamation.

"Why–that looks like–it is sheep!" he ejaculated. "Sheep by the hundreds."

"Sheep’s the word!" returned the driver. "This is Sheepy’s layout. That’s his wagon up yon. He herds fer parties in Cody. There’s nigh seven hundred of them sheep. Never seen such a flock before, did ye?"

Before Ross could reply, the stage swung around a corner of the hill and Andy, with a sharp whistle, drew up the leaders abruptly. They were in an open space in front of the stage camp, half cabin and half dugout driven into the hillside. Beside the dugout was a low, stout corral, outside of which were a haystack and a jumble of bales of hay. As the stage stopped, the door of the dugout opened, and a man loomed large against a dim light within.

But all this Ross did not notice at the time. His attention was riveted on the horse just ahead ridden by the stranger. Around and around it whirled, unmindful of the quirt and spur of the rider."Pretty ridin’," remarked Andy, spitting appreciatively over the wheel.

The men inside the stage clambered out with grunts at their stiffened limbs, and leaned against the wheels watching. The man in the doorway stepped out, and thrust his hands into his pockets, and looked calmly while the horse placed its four feet together and humped its back with a momentum which sent the rider high in the air.

When he came down, he settled himself in the saddle, drew up on the reins, and dug his spurs into the horse’s flank. The animal, his nostrils distended and the foam flying from his mouth, without any warning rose on his hind legs, and threw himself backward. The rider freed one foot from the stirrup; but the other caught, and horse and rider went down in a heap. There was a deep groan from both, and then silence. If the men had seemed indifferent before, they made up in activity now. With a flying leap Andy was down from his high seat. The stage-camp man rushed forward, and threw himself on the horse’s head, while the others pulled the unconscious rider from beneath the animal’s body.

"Leg’s done for," Ross heard Steele say as they carried the wounded man into the dugout.

Ross clambered awkwardly down from his seat, and followed. He nearly fell over an empty chicken-coop and into the one little room of the dugout.

"Put ’im here," directed the stage-camp man, whom the others called Hank. He pointed to the blankets in the corner from which he had crawled ten minutes before.

"Here, boy," Steele said with pale-faced absorption, "smooth the blankets up."

Ross, half dazed by his strange and unexpected surroundings, slowly and clumsily did as he was directed, and they laid the unconscious stranger down carefully, his left leg hanging limply from a point half-way between knee and hip. Then the men straightened up, and looked at one another.

"A bad job," muttered Hank.

"Take ’im back to Cody?" asked Steele.

Hillis shook his head. "Doctor there went to Thermopolis this morning."

Suddenly the daze which had beclouded Ross’s brain cleared away. He woke up, and his whole attention focused itself on the prostrate man. In a moment he became alert, resourceful, and active. His boyish hesitation fell from him. He threw off his top-coat, tossed his cap with it to the uncovered board table, and, kneeling by the man’s side, laid his ear on the heart.

"Go out," he said authoritatively to the astonished men, "and bring in my smallest trunk. Hurry, for this chap will be conscious in just a moment."

No one stirred.

Whipping out his jack-knife, Ross cut a strap which secured the chaps, and caught one leg at the ankle. "Help me pull ’em off," he cried urgently.

Some one stooped to the other foot, and the chaps were off. Kneeling beside the wounded leg, with his knife, Ross ripped the trousers from ankle to thigh, and exposed a bloody wound.

"Compound fracture," he exclaimed after a brief examination.

Then he looked up. "Where’s that chest?" he demanded. "I must cleanse this and bandage it at once."

The cock-sureness of the boy’s tone and the sight of the skilful touch of his fingers on the wound galvanized the two miners into action, and in a moment the emergency chest was beside Ross.

"Hot water," was his next command, as he fumbled with the key, "and a small dish"–his eye fell on the table–"that salt cellar, with every grain of salt washed out. Quick!"

The wounded man had recovered consciousness now, and was groaning, and clinching his fists, and rolling his head from side to side in agony.

"Are you a doctor?" asked Steele incredulously."My uncle is," Ross returned briefly, "and I’m going to be."

The answer, coupled with a view of the contents of the chest and Ross’s manipulation of those contents, brought relief to the men.

He had produced a hypodermic syringe, and with a tiny morphine tablet dissolved in the salt cellar he began operations which lasted the greater part of two hours, and employed every man present.

"Bring in that hen-coop," directed Ross; "we can use that for a double inclined plane to stretch the leg over."

Steele, who had so recently issued orders to a slow and clumsy boy, now quietly obeyed this embryo surgeon. Hillis was holding bandages, while Hank and Andy were doing something which filled their souls with wonder, namely, making long, narrow bags from grain sacks out of which wheat had been hastily dumped.

"By the great horn spoon, what’re these fer?" Andy demanded in an undertone, running the big needle deep into his thumb. "Jehoshaphat!"

Hank shook his head helplessly. He plumped a stick of wood into his rusty old stove, and refilled a kettle from a water pail which stood on a box. Steele dragged in the triangular chicken-coop, and laid it beside the wounded man, who was moaning mechanically and drowsily now.Ross arose, and set a bottle of alcohol on the table. He looked critically at the coop. "The very thing," he muttered with eyes alight. "How fortunate that I fell over it coming in!" Then he paused in thought.

Miners’ Camp and Meadow Creek were forgotten. Forgotten were Weimer and the neglected work. A "case" lay before him, a man needing the help that it was life for the boy to give.

When, at last, the belated stage was ready to move on, the men, again in their overcoats, lined up and looked down at the sleeping patient. He lay with the knee of the wounded leg over the peak of the chicken-coop, padded thick and soft with blankets, the leg held secure and motionless between heavy sand-bags. Down the leg from knee to foot on either side ran strips of adhesive plaster with loops protruding below the foot. And attached to the loops was a small bag loaded with stone.

"To reduce the fracture," Ross explained briefly. He was on his knees, measuring the well leg with a tape measure from the haircloth trunk. "See, this leg is longer now because the broken parts of the thigh bone in the other have been driven past each other, and the muscles have contracted, shortening the leg. The weight on the foot will stretch the muscles and allow the ends of the bone to meet again.""Jehoshaphat!" exclaimed Andy softly. "He’s lucky to have you come trailin’ down the pike just behind ’im. But see here, fellers," the driver turned to the others; "yer Uncle Samuel will dock me this time sure, fer the mail won’t reach Meeteetse in time fer the stage up to Miners’ Camp!"

"Miners’ Camp!"

The exclamation burst involuntarily from Ross. He arose. The tape measure dropped from his hands. He drew his hand across his wet forehead. He had seen the stage load prepare to go on without a thought that he ought to go also. His one idea had been the care of the nameless man on the blankets.

"Miners’ Camp," he repeated; "why, I ought to go on!"

"Not much," cried Hank in lively alarm. "What ’ud I do with him and all that toggery?" jerking his thumb over his shoulder at the chicken-coop.

"Of course," was Ross’s decision in a low tone, "I can’t desert him–but I ought to go on."

A few moments later, Andy’s four bronchos pounded up the hill beyond the stage camp and disappeared, leaving Ross standing beside the window watching. The man on the blankets breathed heavily. A big yellow cat purred around Ross’s legs. Hank poked the fire."Guess I’ll rustle some grub now," the latter said in awkward solicitude. "Ye’re all in, ain’t ye, Doc?"

Ross turned from the window wearily without replying, and for the first time looked about the cabin.

It was roughly boarded, with a hard dirt floor. In addition to the bench, the only seats were boxes in which "canned goods" had been stored away. A pile of wood lay behind an old stove propped up on boxes in lieu of legs. A cupboard containing some tin cups and thick plates, a few pans and skillets, and a shelf heaped with magazines half a year old completed the furnishings of the room.

Suddenly Ross’s eyes lighted on the wounded man’s sheepskin coat, which had been cast hurriedly aside on the floor. Lifting it, he stepped to the door, and commenced to shake it energetically. Out of the breast pocket fell a small object. It hit the stone in front of the door with a metallic ring. Ross picked it up, and looked down into the photographed face of a winning girl with smiling eyes, curved lips, and plump cheeks. The picture was a little oval set in a gilt frame. On the back in a girlish hand was written the inscription, "To Lon Weston."

"Weston, huh?" came Hank’s voice at Ross’s elbow. "I never heard of Lon Weston before. Wonder where he hails from."

Hank glanced speculatively at the sleeper, then took a deep earthenware dish from the cupboard, beat its contents with a spoon, greased a skillet, and set it on the fire.

"Men fergot t’ eat," he grumbled, "’n’ fergot t’ feed the horses. They fergot everything except him. They’ll be one hungry lot when they land in Meeteetse."

He raised the smoking skillet, and gave a deft toss, which sent the flapjack spinning into the air, turned it over, and settled it back with the baked side uppermost.

"Nice-looking girl that!" he muttered absently, immediately adding, "Here ye are–flapjacks ’n’ coffee!"

Late in the afternoon the injured man aroused himself groaning. He stared at Ross with eyes which gradually cleared as a realization of his environment was borne in on him.

"I say, Doc," he muttered, biting his lips with the pain, "I’m all to the bad, ain’t I?"

"Leg’s used up for a few days, that’s all, Mr. Weston," returned Ross cheerfully.

The man turned his head quickly. His eyes widened and he seemed to forget his pain. For a long moment he lay motionless looking from Ross to Hank, who grinned hospitably at him from the stove.

"Cheer up down there," said Hank in jovial strain, "the worst is yet t’ come, fer I’m makin’ ye some puddin’, and even my mother ’ud say that puddin’ ain’t one of my strong pints!"

The sick man did not smile. He merely stared at the speaker until Hank disappeared, a water pail in hand, bound for the spring. Then he threw out a hand toward Ross and asked abruptly:

"Where did you get it?"

Ross, turning a flapjack awkwardly, looked inquiringly over his shoulder. "Get what?"

"The name–Weston?"

Ross smiled and then, partly because he was embarrassed and partly because he thought the injured man would be, turned his back before answering, "A picture fell out of your coat and I–we–saw the name written on the back, ’Lon Weston.’"

There was no reply, and presently Ross added, "I put the photo back in your pocket and hung the coat above your head there on the peg. Guess you can reach it."

Still no reply, and Ross, looking around, found his patient with head turned away, eyes closed and lips pressed tightly together in his beard.

Suddenly, in the open doorway appeared a figure that Ross had not seen before. A shaggy head was advanced cautiously within the cabin and the owner peered at Weston curiously. Then, evidently understanding his closed eyes to mean sleep, the stranger backed out precipitately and sat down on the bench outside the door. From this vantage point he peered around the jamb from time to time eyeing Ross and his patient in turn.

"Good-evening," said the former as the stranger showed no signs of speaking.

The shaggy head appeared in the doorway and nodding briefly, was withdrawn, just as Hank, coming with the water, called, "Well, Sheepy, what’s the latest word up your way?"

It was Luther, otherwise "Sheepy," the herder whose wagon crowned the adjacent hill. He was Hank’s daily caller.

"There ye are, Doc," exclaimed Hank entering with the water. "Puddin’ fer Weston, and flapjacks ’n’ coffee fer you and me with cabbage ’n’ spuds thrown in. Fill up."

It was a menu which was not varied to any great extent in the days which followed, strange days for "Doc Tenderfoot," as Hank called Ross.

Every night at midnight one of the two stages plying between Cody and Meeteetse stopped at the stage camp for supper and horse feed. Every noon the other stage stopped for dinner on its return trip. Between times, horsemen came and went, occasionally, men from the ranches on Wood River and the Grey Bull, miners "packing" their beds behind them, prospectors going out of the mountains for the winter, and every day during the first week there was Sheepy. Sheepy usually came toward night when his flock had been driven in from the range and rounded up by the faithful shepherd dog near the canvas-topped wagon.

One day, the last of the week, after Ross had had a particularly trying time with his patient, he left the latter asleep, and going outside, sat on the bench in the sunshine watching Hank who was repairing the corral. Presently Sheepy joined him, first refreshing himself, as usual, with a long look at the snoring Weston.

"Once I seen a feller that rode like him and looked like him, only his hair and beard," Sheepy announced finally in a hoarse whisper. "I seen ’im ridin’ in ahead of th’ stage that night, and I thought ’twas th’ other chap."

Ross listened without interest. Sheepy filled a pipe with deliberation and lighted it. Then, clasping a worn knee in both hands he spoke again out of the corner of his mouth.

"That feller had hair light as tow and his face clean of beard, but he rode the same and his eyes was the same. He was a puncher off the cattle ranges. Used to ride past my wagon alone about once a week headin’ fer town. Went in the edge of the evenin’ always."

"And where were you?" asked Ross still without interest.

"Down in Oklahomy. I was herdin’ sheep fer old man Quinn."

Ross looked at Sheepy with new interest. "I heard the men on the train talking about old man Quinn and the sheep that he lost. Were you there at that time?"

Sheepy nodded. "I sartain was. That’s two years gone by."

"And did you see what was going on–driving the sheep into the river, I mean?" questioned Ross eagerly.

The sheep-herder shook his grizzled head. "It wa’n’t off my range that the sheep was drove, but another feller’s called Happy. He seen there was four men done it. It was night–dark night, and they didn’t stop to say howdy ner make any introductions. They shot Happy’s dog and got away over the bluff with a thousand sheep. They was drunk, all of ’em, but not too drunk not t’ know what they was doin’. Old man Quinn got three of ’em. He’s been after the other ever since."

"Do you think he’ll be caught?"Sheepy moved his shoulders helplessly. "Don’t know. Old man Quinn he never lets up on a thing. Took ’im two years t’ find three. Bet he don’t give t’other up."

"Why did they drive the sheep over the bluff?" asked Ross.

Sheepy frowned. "Cattlemen claimed the sheep had crossed the dead line. Cattlemen are always claimin’ that, and they push the line further and further in on the sheep and claim more of the range every year. They do here. They did down in Oklahomy. The sheep owners and cattlemen had a row at the big cattle round-up on the North Fork. It was after the round-up, when the cow punchers was feelin’ pretty gay and let themselves loose, that them four drove old man Quinn’s sheep over the bluff."

There was a pause, and then Sheepy went back to the original subject. "The feller that looked like him and rode like him," jerking his thumb over his shoulder, "used to ride past when I was shakin’ grub in my wagon. He used t’ go grinnin’ mostly and starin’ at his hoss’ ears. And he alus went with his fixin’s on, tan chaps and a red silk ’kerchief ’round his neck and Indian gloves with these here colored gauntlets. Oh, he struck the trail in his good togs all right–bet he went t’ see some girl ’r other!"This was the last information that Ross received from Sheepy for several months. The following morning there arrived from Cody a supply wagon which replenished the sheep-herder’s larder, and then, the sheep having eaten the range bare for miles around the dugout, the canvas-topped wagon was attached to the supply wagon and drawn to another hilltop ten miles away. With it went Sheepy only faintly regretting the loss of companionship at the dugout. The seven hundred sheep that his dog rounded up and drove in advance of the wagons were the companions with which he was best acquainted.

"It wouldn’t ha’ been a bad idee," Hank remarked when the last bleat died away in the distance, "if Sheepy could ha’ stayed all winter. He ain’t generally long on talk–none of them herders be–but he was some one t’ have around, and once in a while his tongue breaks loose."

Ross drew a long breath and thought of Meadow Creek.

In the afternoon Hank resumed his repairs on the corral, leaving Weston asleep and Ross kneeling beside his medicine chest sorting its contents.

The sorting done, the boy arose noiselessly and closed the lid of the chest. Then, turning, he looked down on the head of the sleeper. For the first time he noticed that Weston’s hair, thick and unkempt, was dull in color and had a dead look at variance with its evident health. Tiptoeing across the floor he bent over the recumbent man and gently raising a lock of his hair looked wonderingly at the roots. The sight caused him to utter an exclamation which disturbed the sleeper. He straightened himself and stepped back precipitately.

The hair was tow-colored at the roots.