The Night Horseman | Page 2

the particular, but in a lighter moment of idleness, I pray you give some
careless thought to a problem now painfully my own, though rooted
inevitably so deeply in the dirt of the commonplace.
"But you have asked me in letter of recent date for the particular
physical aspects of my present environment, and though (as you so well
know) it is my conviction that the physical fact is not and only the
immaterial is, yet I shall gladly look about me--a thing I have not yet
seen occasion to do--and describe to you the details of my present
condition."
Accordingly, at this point Randall Byrne removed from his nose his
thick glasses and holding them poised he stared through the window at
the view without. He had quite changed his appearance by removing
the spectacles, for the owlish touch was gone and he seemed at a stroke
ten years younger. It was such a face as one is glad to examine in detail,
lean, pale, the transparent skin stretched tightly over cheekbones, nose,
and chin. That chin was built on good fighting lines, though somewhat
over-delicate in substance and the mouth quite colourless, but oddly
enough the upper lip had that habitual appearance of stiff compression
which is characteristic of highly strung temperaments; it is a noticeable
feature of nearly every great actor, for instance. The nose was straight
and very thin and in a strong sidelight a tracery of the red blood showed
through at the nostrils. The eyes were deeply buried and the lower lids
bruised with purple--weak eyes that blinked at a change of light or a
sudden thought--distant eyes which missed the design of wall paper and
saw the trees growing on the mountains. The forehead was Byrne's
most noticeable feature, pyramidal, swelling largely towards the top
and divided in the centre into two distinct lobes by a single marked
furrow which gave his expression a hint of the wistful. Looking at that
forehead one was strangely conscious of the brain beneath. There
seemed no bony structure; the mind, undefended, was growing and
pushing the confining walls further out.
And the fragility which the head suggested the body confirmed, for he
was not framed to labor. The burden of the noble head had bowed the

slender throat and crooked the shoulders, and when he moved his arm it
seemed the arm of a skeleton too loosely clad. There was a differing
connotation in the hands, to be sure. They were thin--bones and sinews
chiefly, with the violet of the veins showing along the backs; but they
were active hands without tremor--hands ideal for the accurate scalpel,
where a fractional error means death to the helpless.
After a moment of staring through the window the scholar wrote again:
"The major portion of Elkhead lies within plain sight of my window. I
see a general merchandise store, twenty-seven buildings of a
comparatively major and eleven of a minor significance, and five
saloons. The streets--"
The streets, however, were not described at that sitting, for at this
juncture a heavy hand knocked and the door of Randall Byrne's room
was flung open by Hank Dwight, proprietor of Elkhead's saloon--a
versatile man, expert behind the bar or in a blacksmith shop.
"Doc," said Hank Dwight, "you're wanted." Randall Byrne placed his
spectacles more firmly on his nose to consider his host.
"What--" he began, but Hank Dwight had already turned on his heel.
"Her name is Kate Cumberland. A little speed, doc. She's in a hurry."
"If no other physician is available," protested Byrne, following slowly
down the stairs, "I suppose I must see her."
"If they was another within ten miles, d'you s'pose I'd call on you?"
asked Hank Dwight.
So saying, he led the way out onto the veranda, where the doctor was
aware of a girl in a short riding skirt who stood with one gloved hand
on her hip while the other slapped a quirt idly against her riding boots.

CHAPTER II

WORDS AND BULLETS
"Here's a gent that calls himself a doc," said Hank Dwight by way of an
introduction. "If you can use him, Miss Cumberland, fly to it!"
And he left them alone.
Now the sun lay directly behind Kate Cumberland and in order to look
at her closely the doctor had to shade his weak eyes and pucker his
brows; for from beneath her wide sombrero there rolled a cloud of
golden hair as bright as the sunshine itself--a sad strain upon the visual
nerve of Doctor Randall Byrne. He repeated her name, bowed, and
when he straightened, blinked again. As if she appreciated that strain
upon his eyes she stepped closer, and entered the shadow.
"Doctor Hardin is not in town," she said, "and I have to bring a
physician out