Tempest pushed up the brim of his Stetson, looking at Dick with more friendliness than usual in his grave eyes.
"You are not very gay yourself," he said. "Feel fit to go?"
"Oh, Lord, yes. And that's more than you are, by the look of you, old man."
Tempest's face softened.
"I haven't been good company lately," he said. "But I don't want to make you pay for it. A man doesn't care to alienate one of the few friends he has affection for."
Dick looked at the ground. No; a man did not care to do it, but it was probably going to be done very shortly.
"We'll both feel better when this heat's over. It certainly was a snorter in the court-house this morning. And it will be worse to-morrow, very likely. I'll take a snack with me and go, then. Shall I take Flanks or the piebald?"
"Better have Flanks. Kennedy had the pony most of yesterday. Bring the man in if necessary. And you can't waste time, you know. There is work to put through before the cases start in the morning."
Dick nodded and went in to hurry Poley over the providing of eatables for him. His pocket-flask he filled himself. Since he came back from Edmonton it had required to be filled more often than any case of assistance on the patrols seemed to warrant. Then he harnessed up the big chestnut into the buckboard; took such things as guesswork and knowledge suggested for the aid of the sick man, and plunged from the blazing heat of afternoon into the cool greens of the forest. The Galician might be suffering with anything from smallpox to angina pectoris or broken limbs. That did not trouble Dick. It was all in the day's work, just as the knowledge that a king-bolt or a spring, or a shaft might break on this rough trail of corduroy, deep pot-holes and tree-butts was all in the day's work. Chance and danger were fed to him with his daily meals, and, like many another man, he found their sauce the principal thing which made his food worth while.
In all directions the birds were home-coming. Their calls and twitters and flurry of quick wings knit up the long aisles into runs and chords of sweet, eager sound.
