For the time being he was wholly occupied with his own horse; but when Glory was minded to go straight ahead instead of in a circle, he gave thought to his mission and thanked the Lord that Dock was headed in the right direction.  He gave chase joyfully; for every mile covered in that fleet fashion meant an added chance for Patsy’s life.  Even the mosquitoes found themselves hopelessly out of the race and beat up harmlessly in the rear.  So he galloped steadily upon the homeward trail; and a new discomfort forced itself upon his consciousness—­the discomfort of swift riding while a sharp-cornered medicine-case of generous proportions thumped regularly against his leg.  At first he did not mind it so much, but after ten minutes of riding so, the thing grew monotonously painful and disquieting to the nerves.

Five miles from the town he sighted the pinto; it was just disappearing up a coulee which led nowhere—­much less to camp.  Weary’s self-congratulatory mood changed to impatience; he followed after.  Two miles, and he reached the unclimbable head of the coulee—­and no pinto.  He pulled up and gazed incredulously at the blank, sandstone walls; searched long for some hidden pathway to the top and gave it up.

He rode back slowly under the stars, a much disheartened Weary.  He thought of Patsy’s agony and gritted his teeth at his own impotence.  After awhile he thought of Old Dock lashed to the pinto’s saddle, and his conscience awoke and badgered him unmercifully for the thing he had done and the risk he had taken with one man’s life that he might save the life of another.

Down near the mouth of the coulee he came upon a cattle trail winding up toward the stars.  For the lack of a better clue he turned into it and urged Glory faster than was wise if he would save the strength of his horse; but Glory was game as long as he could stand, and took the hill at a lope with never a protest against the pace.

Up on the top the prairie stretched mysteriously away to the sky-line, with no sound to mar the broody silence, and with never a movement to disturb the deep sleep of the grass-land.  All day had the hills been buffeted by a sweeping West wind; but the breeze had dropped with the sun, as though tired with roistering and slept without so much as a dream-puff to shake the dew from the grasses.

Weary stopped to wind his horse and to listen, but not a hoof-beat came to guide him in his search.  He leaned and shifted the medicine case a bit to ease his bruised leg, and wished he might unlock the healing mysteries and the magic stored within.  It seemed to him a cruel world and unjust that knowledge must be gleaned slowly, laboriously, while men died miserably for want of it.  Worse, that men who had gleaned should be permitted to smother such precious knowledge in the stupefying fumes of whiskey.