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“Which way?” I asked.

She pointed to a star.

“That way, señor.”

“There is a road?”

“There is desert. The señor will have to watch and drive with care.”

I put the car in low and swung away from my camp, out toward the star.

Twice we had to make detours of direction to get level ground, swinging around the heads of dry washes. Once we got into such deep sand that I had to let some air out of the tires. Finally we saw a hill blotting out the lower stars, showing as a dim silhouette.

“Señor,” she said, placing her soft hand upon the back of mine, “it is here.”

I saw the rudiments of a road, and floor-boarded the throttle. We crept up the hill, making a terrific noise of snarling motor, grinding transmission, spinning tires.

There was a house at the top. A door flung open into a lighted oblong, and a fat woman stood as a black blotch, framed in gold. She screamed a comment in Spanish. I shut off the motor, and the girl vaulted over the door and ran with flashing ankles. I followed, more slowly. The fat woman showered blessings upon my head, hailed me as one sent from the gods.

The house had that indefinable odor of a place where sickness reigns.

An oil lamp furnished a reddish illumination. There were beds in the single room, a table, a stove, a rude fireplace. A couple of boxes did for chairs. It was a desert home, no better and perhaps a little worse than the average.

On the bed next to the far wall something tossed and turned. Over this bed the girl was stooped, her cool hands soothing in fluttered caresses.

I walked to her.

He was a white man, and he was far gone. His red-rimmed eyes told of wasting fever. The gaunt face seemed but pale skin stretched over white bones. His beard had grown in rough stubble. The hair was matted, the lips tinged with blue.

About the bed was a foul odor, the odor of decomposition.

I knew then that the man was wounded, that it was an old wound, and that he could not be moved. I had seen death before, and I knew the shadow of its fluttering wings.

I wondered how I might break the news to the man on the bed and to the girl. It was hard to say. There was, perhaps, a chance in a million if the man lay there, if he had plenty of water, if his wound were cauterized and treated with proper antiseptics.

To move him over the jolting surface of the desert would mean certain death. Yet the girl had set her heart on his being moved. She recognized the slow march of death in the man’s present surroundings. Had I come there a day sooner it might not have been too late. But his face was already graying.

It was the man who broke the silence. He turned his feverish eyes upon me and smiled. As his lips parted I could smell the fever on his breath.

II

Yaqui Bullets

“Tina says she got you, to move me,” he said. “It is too late; but I am glad you have come. Draw up a box and listen — listen carefully, for I cannot repeat. I will tell you everything, and then the tax on my strength will bring about the end. So you must listen, and not interrupt, not argue, not question.”

I grinned reassuringly.

“Oh, it’s not that bad. You can tell me a little, then get some sleep. To-morrow you’ll be better. Maybe you can be moved by to-morrow night.”

He shook his head, rolling it from side to side upon the flour-sacked bundle that served as a pillow.

“Don’t argue! Don’t try to salve me over. I know what I know. I’m a surgeon. I know the symptoms. I’ll be good for twenty-four hours if I conserve my strength. If I talk I’ll go any minute. But I’ve got to talk. The end is the same in any event. Come closer, don’t waste time.”

I knew he spoke the truth. The girl felt it. She gave a choking sob, grabbed his hand in hers, pressed it to her lips. He smiled at her, and the fever-reddened eyes grew tender; then he turned to me.

“Take my wrist in your hand. Hold your middle finger there, on the pulse. As long as it beats firm don’t interrupt me. When you feel it skip a few beats and then race rapidly in little, stringy pulses, that means I am going. Then tell me to be fast. Until then, let me tell it my own way, don’t interrupt.”

I nodded a promise. He was half delirious, fighting for sanity, and his pulse was rapid, bounding, but regular.

I held the fever-parched flesh, felt the throbbing pulse as it pounded away the life stream beneath my fingers, and listened.

“I am a Los Angeles surgeon. I had an office in one of the new buildings on Wilshire. My name doesn’t matter. Civilization had gripped me. I was money mad. I wanted power, and I wanted money.

“I had some measure of success in my profession. I thought I was progressing. I invested and made money. Then came the crash of the stock market. I was wiped out. And I was fighting mad, desperate. I d have robbed a bank if I could have been certain of getting away with it. You know the frame of mind.”

I nodded, because he was half delirious and because I wanted him to get over the preliminaries and get down to business. He went on:

“Then a girl came into my office. She was just a young thing, society stamped all over her, class in every line of her bearing. But she was in some sort of trouble. There were dark circles under her eyes. Her glance was nervous.

“I thought I knew the symptoms, but I didn’t. There was an old man with her, a fellow who was all dried out by desert winds. He must have been about sixty. There was some strange bond between him and the girl, yet she didn’t trust him.

“The girl did the talking: ‘This man wants an X-ray of his shoulder,’ she said.

“I said nothing, but took the X-ray. It would be a cash case and a good fee. I’d see to that, and I knew these cases where they don’t give names and talk as though they’ve carefully rehearsed what they’re going to say — which is the case.

“The X-ray showed a bullet under the right scapula. It was an old wound. The scar was nearly faded to normal color. I showed them the plate.

“ ‘Remove that bullet,’ said the girl.

“I shook my head. ‘It’s not advisable,’ I told her; ‘the wound is an old one, and the bullet has been isolated by the tissues. It’s not interfering with the bone or muscle motion, and there’s always danger of infection from an operation.’

“She scowled at me. ‘We want it removed. If you won’t do it, some one else will. There’s a good fee in it for you if you do it, nothing if you don’t.’

“ ‘Can you go to the hospital this afternoon?’ I asked the man.

“ ‘Hospital — hell!’ blazed the girl. ‘It’s a case for an operation right here and now. You’ve got the equipment.’

“ ‘I’d have to get a nurse.’

“ ‘I’ll be your nurse.’

“ ‘You! You’d get sick at the sight of blood!’

“ ‘Try me.’

“I tried her. I got her to help with the anaesthetic, and I performed the operation there on my office operating table. I dug out the bullet, sewed up the cut, put on bandages, and turned to her. She was white-faced, and her lips were tight, but she was standing it one hundred per cent.

“ ‘It’s all over,’ I told her. ‘It’ll be a couple of hours before he comes out from under. Then he can be taken home in a cab or an ambulance. He’ll be feeling pretty groggy.’

“She nodded, and began fishing among the packings I d used and dumped into the bowl at the foot of the table. I asked what she wanted.