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 to the ranch at once; my father is critically ill." Randall Byrne rubbed his lean chin.
"I am not practicing at present," he said reluctantly.

Then he saw that she was watching him closely, weighing him with her eyes, and it came to the mind of Randall Byrne that he was not a large man and might not incline the scale far from the horizontal.
"I am hardly equipped--" began Byrne.
"You will not need equipment," she interrupted.