Now that she had them, Mary did not want the rolls. She felt they would choke her. She waited until her kindly neighbor had trotted back to her household cares, and pushed the plate away. She turned to her window with an exaggerated feeling of relief. It was hard to watch ceaselessly for some one to top that little rise out yonder and yet for no one ever to do it. But there were compensations. It is really better sometimes not to see things than to see—some things. And it was easier to keep her head clear when she was watching the road. A younger White, an over-grown lad of twelve, came in from far afield. He carried a shot-gun in one hand and a gunny-sack thrown over his shoulder. He slouched up and deposited the contents of the bag in front of Mary’s window with a bashful, but sociable grin. Mary nodded approvingly, and the boy was soon absorbed in dressing the fowls. What a feast there would be that night if the men got back! At last came the doctor and Gordon, driving up in the doctor’s top-buggy, weather-stained, mud-bedaubed with the mud of last Spring, of many Springs. The doctor was a badly dressed, pleasant-eyed man, past middle age, with a fringe of gray whiskers. He was a sort of journeyman doctor, and he had drifted hither one day two Summers ago from the Lake Andes country in this selfsame travel-worn conveyance with its same bony sorrel. He had found good picking, he had often jovially remarked since, chewing serenely away on a brand of vile plug the while. He had elected to remain. He was part and parcel of the cattle country now. He was an established condition. People had learned to accept him as he was and be grateful. Haste was a mental and physical impossibility to him. He took his own time. All must perforce acquiesce. But as he took Mary’s wrist between well-shaped fingers disfigured with long, black nails, he had not been able as yet to readjust himself to old conditions after last night’s grewsome experience. He was still walking in a maze. He occasionally even forgot the automatic movement of his jaws. Ah, little doctor, something untoward must have happened to cause you to forget that! What that something was he was thinking about now, and that was what made his blue eyes twinkle so merrily.