“Mail it at the first box,” he said.  “Then you can put the car up.  I won’t need it to-night.”

The surgeon at the General Hospital was bending over Pete.  The surgeon shook his head, then turning he gave the attendant nurse a few brief directions, and passed on to another cot.  As the nurse sponged Pete’s arm, an interne poised a little glittering needle.  “There’s just a chance,” the surgeon had said.

At the quick stab of the needle, Pete’s heavy eyes opened.  The little gray-eyed nurse smiled.  The interne rubbed Pete’s arm and stepped back.  Pete’s lips moved.  The nurse bent her head.  “Did—­Ed”—­Pete’s face twitched—­“make it?”

“You mustn’t talk,” said the nurse gently.  And wishing with all her heart to still the question that struggled in those dark, anxious eyes, she smiled again.  “Yes, he made it,” she said, wondering if Ed were the other outlaw that the papers had said had escaped.  She walked briskly to the end of the room and returned with a dampened towel and wiped the dank sweat from Pete’s forehead.  He stared up at her, his face white and expressionless.  “It was the coat—­my hand caught,” he murmured.

She nodded brightly, as though she understood.  She did not know what his name was.  There had been nothing by which to identify him.  And she could hardly believe that this youth, lying there under that black shadow that she thought never would lift again, could be the desperate character the interne made him out to be, retailing the newspaper account of his capture to her.

It was understood, even before the doctor had examined Pete, that he could not live long.  The police surgeon had done what he could.  Pete had been removed to the General Hospital, as the Emergency was crowded.

The little nurse was wondering if he had any relatives, any one for whom he wished to send.  Surely he must realize that he was dying!  She was gazing at Pete when his eyes slowly opened and the faintest trace of a smile touched his lips.  His eyes begged so piteously that she stepped close to the cot and stooped.  She saw that he wanted to ask her something, or tell her something that was worrying him.  “What did it matter?” she thought.  At any moment he might drift into unconsciousness . . .

“Would you—­write—­to The Spider—­and say I delivered the—­goods?”

“But who is he—­where—­”

“Jim Ewell, Showdown—­over in—­Arizona.”

“Jim Ewell, Showdown, Arizona.” she repeated.  “And what name shall I sign?”

“Jest Pete,” he whispered, and his eyes closed.

Pete’s case puzzled Andover, the head-surgeon at, the General.  It was the third day since Pete’s arrival and he was alive—­but just alive and that was all.  One peculiar feature of the case was the fact that the bullet—­a thirty-eight—­which had pierced the right lung, had not gone entirely through the body.  Andover, experienced in gun-shot wounds, knew that