"I've got everything fixed," he cried, and then slid off holding to the saddle for he was stiff and spent. "The place is ready and I've found a doctor and got him nailed. It'll be all clean and shipshape for you. How's Low?" An answer was unnecessary. He could see there were no good tidings. "Weaker a little," she said. "But if it's fine we can start to-morrow." He thought of the road he had traveled and felt they were in God's hands. Then he stretched a gnarled and tremulous claw and laid it on her shoulder. "And there's other news, Missy. Great news. I'm thinking that it may help you." There was no news that could help her but news of Low. She was so fixed in her preoccupation that her eye was void of interest, as his, bright and expectant, held it: "I seen David." He was rewarded. Her face flashed into excitement and she grabbed at him with a wild hand: "David! Where?" "In Sacramento. I seen him and talked to him." "Oh, Daddy John, how wonderful! Was he well?" "Well and hearty, same as he used to be. Plumped up considerable." "How had he got there?" "A train behind us picked him up, found him lyin' by the spring where he'd crawled lookin' for us." "Then, it wasn't Indians? Had he got lost?" "That's what I says to him first-off--'Well, gol darn yer, what happened to yer?' and before he answers me he says quick, 'How's Susan?' It ain't no use settin' on bad news that's bound to come out so I give it to him straight that you and Low was married at Humboldt. And he took it very quiet, whitened up a bit, and says no words for a spell, walkin' off a few steps. Then he turns back and says, 'Is she happy?'" Memory broke through the shell of absorption and gave voice to a forgotten sense of guilt: "Oh, poor David! He always thought of me first."