When all was done that she could do, there was the instant need to hurry home for help. She hated terribly to leave him alone in the dark, yet a lighted candle with a man so ill was a risk that she dared not run--he might move about and set the house on fire. When she closed the darkened room with its stark figure lying under the white covers, her heart sank and sank. She must turn the key upon him. There was no good in hesitating. Only her strong will, her high courage, sustained her as she locked the door, and turning ran, with feet that love and terror winged, toward her own home. The rain drenched her; the darkness seemed a thing palpable; she slipped and fell, got to her feet and ran on. Jephthah Turrentine, asleep in his own cabin, heard the sound of beating palms against his door, and a voice outside in the dark and the rain that cried upon him. "Uncle Jep! Uncle Jep! For God's sake get up quick and help me. Creed Bonbright's come home to his house, and I think he's dead or dyin' over there." Chapter XXIV A Case of Walking Typhoid "Uh--_huh_!" said the old man as he straightened up after a long examination of Creed. "I thort so. He's got a case o' walkin' typhoid, an' looks like he's been on his feet with it till hit's plumb wore him out." He stood staring down at the prostrate figure, which had neither sound nor movement, the fluttering breath of which seemed scarcely to stir the chest. "Walkin' typhoid," he repeated. "I've met up with some several in my lifetime. Cur'ous things. His wound looks to be healed. Reckon he's been puny along ever sence he got that ball in his shoulder, and hit's ended up in this here spell of fever." "Will he die, Uncle Jep?" whispered Judith, crouching beside him, her dark eyes roving desperately from the still form to her uncle's countenance. "What must we do for him?" "N-no--I reckon he has a chance," hesitated Jephthah. Then, glancing at her white, miserable face, "an' ef he has, hit's to git him away from here an' into bed right. Lord, I wish 't the boys had been home to he'p us out. Well, we'll have to do the best we can." As he spoke he put the word into action, getting a length of home-made carpet to put in the bottom of the waggon before he should lay in the feather-bed upon which Creed was to rest. As he worked, despite the look of acute anxiety, the old man's eye was brighter, his step was freer, his head was borne more erect, than Judith had seen it since the trouble came. Silent, efficient, careful, experienced, he managed with her help to lift the unconscious man into the waggon and place him, his head in Judith's lap, for the journey home.