How wisely, how honestly, how bravely he would play the Great Game, Rawley unconsciously indicated that evening, when Peter sat alone with the two, after Nevada and her grandmother had given them their supper and gone away. Peter had declared himself rather proud of his surgical skill, and had almost yielded to Rawley’s importunities that he might get up and dress in the morning and help take care of Johnny Buffalo. But Peter had his father’s firmness, after all.
“I took five stitches in that gash on your head,” he explained. “Queo uses slugs to knock over an elephant. I’m not so sure your skull isn’t cracked. You talk rather c***k-brained, sometimes.” (That was Peter’s first joke with them.) “Best wait until we’re sure, anyway.”
Rawley gave an embarrassed kind of laugh and sent an invol
