"Oh, Phil! I'm frightened! This is something--different from--ordinary cold. It must be some--something like--paralysis. I can't move my arms or feet." "I'll run for Doctor Taggess at once!" said Philip; but as he started from the room, Grace half screamed, half groaned:-- "Don't leave me, if you--love me! Don't let me--die--alone!" "At least let me go to the door and raise a shout; some one will hear me, and I'll send him for the Doctor." As he opened the door he saw a light in the window of Caleb's room, over the store. Quickly seizing the cord of the alarm signal, of which Caleb had previously told him, he pulled several times, and soon Caleb, finding the door ajar, entered the room. "Won't you get the Doctor, Caleb--quick?" said Philip. "We're awfully frightened; my wife has a strange, dreadful attack of some kind. It acts like paralysis." Caleb, glancing toward the lounge, saw the quivering covers and Grace's face. "Poor little woman!" he said, with the voice of a woman. "But don't be frightened. 'Tisn't paralysis. It's bad enough, but it never kills. I know the symptoms as well as I know my own right hand, an' Doctor'll do more good later in the evenin' than now." "But what is it, man?" "Malary--fever an' ager. She's never had a chill before, I reckon?" "No--o--o," said Grace, between chattering teeth. "Don't wonder you was scared, then. If religion could take hold like an ager-chill, this part of the country would be a section o' kingdom-come. The mean thing about it is that it takes hardest hold of folks that's been the healthiest. Try not to be scared, though; it won't kill, an' 'twon't last but a few minutes. Then you're likely to drop asleep, an' wake pretty soon with a hot fever an' splittin' headache; they ain't pleasant to look forward to, but they might seem worse if you didn't foresee 'em. I'll go for Doc Taggess right off; if he ain't home, his wife'll send him as soon as he comes. Taggess himself is the best medicine he carries; but if he's off somewhere, I'll come back an' tell your husband what to do. Don't be afeared to trust me; ev'ry man o' sense in this section o' country knows what to do for fever and ager; if he didn't, he'd have to go out o' business." Caleb departed, after again saying "Poor little woman!" very tenderly. As for Philip, he took his wife's hands in his own and poured forth a torrent of sympathetic words; but when the sufferer fell asleep, he went out into the darkness and cursed malaria, the West, and the impulse which had made him become his uncle's heir. He cursed many things else, and then concentrated the remainder of his wrath into an anathema on the pork-house. IX--A WESTERN SPECTRE