Santry, too, was in almost constant attendance upon the sick man, and was as tender and solicitous in his ministrations as Dorothy herself. He ate little and slept less, relieving his feelings by oaths whispered into his mustache. He made the ranch hands move about their various duties as quietly as mice. Dorothy grew to be genuinely fond of him, because of their common bond of sympathy with Wade. Frequently they sat together in the sickroom reading the newspapers, which came out from town each day. On one such occasion, when Santry had twisted his mouth awry in a determined effort to fold the paper he was reading without permitting a single crackle, she softly laughed at him. "You needn't be so careful. I don't think it would disturb him." The old fellow sagely shook his head. "Just the same, I ain't takin' no chances," he said. A moment afterward he tiptoed over to her, grinning from ear to ear, and with a clumsy finger pointed out the item he had been reading. An expression of pleased surprise flooded her face when she read it; they laughed softly together; and, finding that he was through with the paper, she put it away in a bureau drawer, meaning to show that item some day to Gordon. Under the care of Dr. Catlin who rode out from Crawling Water each day, and even more because of Dorothy's careful nursing, the wounded man was at last brought beyond the danger point and started on the road to health. He was very weak and very pale, but the one danger that Catlin had feared and kept mostly to himself, the danger of blood-poisoning, was now definitely past, and the patient's physical condition slowly brought about a thorough and complete recovery. "Some of it you owe to yourself, Wade, as the reward of decent living, and some of it you owe to the Lord," Catlin told him smilingly. "But most of it you owe to this little girl here." He patted Dorothy on the shoulder and would not permit her to shirk his praise. "She's been your nurse, and I can tell you it isn't a pleasant job for a woman, tending a wound like yours." "Is that so?" said Dorothy, mischievously. "That's as much as you know about it. It's been one of the most delightful jobs I ever had." "She's a wonderful girl," said Wade, with a tender look at her, after they had laughed at her outburst. "Oh, you just think that because I'm the only girl around here," she blushingly declared, and the physician kept right on laughing. "There _was_ another girl here once," said Wade. "Or at least she acted somewhat differently from anything you've done lately."