"Just tired; nothing more. I reckon I am going to escape. I should be immune, but you never can tell. The effect of vaccination wears off after a few years." "The women folks over there are terribly worried, and the old lady has made me promise to call her in if you show the slightest signs of coming down." "Tell her to rest easy. I am keeping mighty close watch over myself, and another night will tell the story so far as the old man is concerned. I wish I had a real doctor, but I don't expect any. It is a long hard climb up here for one of those tenderfeet." He returned to his charge, and Swenson walked slowly away, back to the camp, oppressed with the sense of his utter helplessness. Again and again during the day Lee Virginia went to the middle of the bridge, which was the dead-line, and there stood to catch some sign, some wave of the hand from her lover. Strange courtship! and yet hour by hour the tie which bound these young souls together was strengthened. She cooked for him in the intervals of her watch and sent small pencilled notes to him, together with the fish and potatoes, but no scrap of paper came back to her--so scrupulous was Cavanagh to spare her from the faintest shadow of danger. Swenson brought verbal messages, it was true, but they were by no means tender, for Cavanagh knew better than to intrust any fragile vessel of sentiment to this stalwart young woodsman. Now that Lee knew the mysterious old man was dying, she longed for his release--for his release would mean her lover's release. She did not stop to think that it would be long, very long, before she could touch Cavanagh's hand or even speak with him face to face. At times under Swenson's plain speaking she grew faint with the horror of the struggle which was going on in that silent cabin. This leprous plague, this offspring of crowded and dirty tenements and of foul ship-steerages, seemed doubly unholy here in the clean sanity of the hills. It was a profanation, a hideous curse. "If it should seize upon Ross--" Words failed to express her horror, her hate of it. "Oh God, save him!" she prayed a hundred times each day. Twice in the night she rose from her bed to listen, to make sure that Cavanagh was not calling for help. The last time she looked out, a white veil of frost lay on the grass, and the faint light of morning was in the east, and in the exquisite clarity of the air, in the serene hush of the dawn, the pestilence appeared but as the ugly emanation of disordered sleep. The door of the ranger's cabin stood open, but all was silent. "He is snatching a half-hour's sleep," she decided.