Nevada thoughtfully cooled the tea with the spoon and looked at him speculatively. “Uncle Peter can tell you better than I can--since I was not permitted to go along. Besides, the less talking you do now, I believe, the less danger there is of complications. Neither wound is so bad of itself, Uncle Peter says. It’s having your head hurt, along with the broken bone in the arm. Unless you are very quiet for a day or two, there may be fever; and fevered blood makes slow healing. That’s Uncle Peter’s theory, and it must be correct. He has books and studies all the time--when he isn’t working. Then, of course, there’s the danger of infection from the outside; but he has been very careful in the dressings. Johnny Buffalo,” she added after a minute, “is worse off than you are. His shoulder blade is badly smashed. And then he’s so much older.” She was talking, he knew, to prevent him from doing so. And since his head felt like a nest of crickets, all performing at once, he was content to let her have her way. Across the room he could hear the intermittent murmur of the two Indians, the voice of the grandmother droning musically, with sliding, minor inflections as she recounted, no doubt, the history of the old man’s family and friends. He watched Nevada pour and sweeten a second cup of tea and did a swift mental calculation in genealogy. Jess Cramer, he knew, was a white man. The husband of Gladys, bearing the name of Grandfather King’s enemy, must be a son of the old man and of this half-breed squaw. Very well, then, old Jess Cramer’s children would be one quarter Indian--Peter, Jess and Nevada’s mother (granting that Nevada was a blood relative). Nevada’s father must have been white,--a Scotchman, by the name, and by Nevada’s clear skin and coppery hair. Well, then, Nevada was--A knife thrust of pain stabbed through his brain, and he could not think. Nevada set down the cup hastily and laid cool fingers on his temple. He lifted his right hand and held her fingers there. The throbbing agony lessened, grew fainter and fainter. After all, what did it matter--the blood in those fingers? They were cool and sweet and soothing-- He thought Nevada had lifted her hand and was gently removing the bandage from his head. But it was Uncle Peter, and Nevada was not there, and it was dark outside. In another room a clock began to strike the hour. He counted nine. It was strange; he could not remember going to sleep with her fingers pressed against the pulse beat in his temple. Yet he must have slept for hours. He closed his eyes and then opened them again, staring up with a child-like candor into the man’s bent face.