But Lee had no mind for the scenery, though her eyes were lifted to the meadow's wall, down which the ranger was expected to ride. It looked frightfully steep, and whenever she thought of him descending that trail, worn and perhaps ill, her heart ached with anxiety. But Redfield rambled on comfortably, explaining the situation to the doctor, who, being a most unimaginative person, appeared to take it all as a matter of course. At the cabin itself Lee transferred her interest to the supper which had been prepared for the ranger, and she went about the room trying to make it a little more comfortable for him. It was a bare little place, hardly more than a camp (as was proper), and she devoutly prayed that he was not to be sick therein, for it stood in a cold and gloomy place, close under the shadow of a great wall of rock. As it grew dark she lighted a lamp and placed it outside the window in order that its light might catch the ranger's eye, and this indeed it did, for almost instantly a pistol-shot echoed from the hillside, far above, signalling his approach. "There he is!" she exclaimed, in swift rebound to ecstasy. "Hear him shout?" His voice could indeed be heard, though faintly, and so they waited while the darkness deepened and the voice of the stream rose like an exhalation, increasing in violence as the night fell. At last they could hear the sound of his horse's feet upon the rocks, and with girlish impulse Lee raised a musical cry--an invitation as well as a joyous signal. To this the ranger made vocal answer, and they could soon see him moving athwart the hillsides, zigzagging in the trailer's fashion, dropping down with incredible swiftness. He was alone, and leading his horse, but his celerity of movement and the tones of his voice denoted confidence and health. The doctor laughed as he said: "I don't think a very sick man could come down a mountain like that." "Oh, he isn't sick yet," said Redfield. "What we are afraid of is a possible development." The ranger, as he came rushing down the final slope, found his knees weakened as much by excitement as by weariness. To hear Lee's clear voice down there, to know that she was waiting for him, was to feel himself the luckiest of men. Escaping contagion and being on his way to a larger position were as nothing compared to the lure of that girlish halloo. He saw the lamp shine afar, but he could not distinguish the girl's form till he emerged from the clump of pine-trees which hid the bottom of the trail. Then they all shouted together, and Redfield, turning to Lee, warningly said: "Now, my dear girl, you and I must not interfere with the doctor. We will start back to the house at once." "Not yet--not till we've seen him and talked with him," she pleaded. "I don't think there's a particle of danger," said the doctor, "but perhaps you'd better not wait."