"That was ten or twelve days ago," Dad explained, when Mackenzie found himself blinking understandingly at the sunlight through the open end of the sheep-wagon one morning. "You was chawed and beat up till you was hangin' together by threads." Mackenzie was as weak as a young mouse. He closed his eyes and lay thinking back over those days of delirium through which a gleam of understanding fell only once in a while. Dad evidently believed that he was well now, from his manner and speech, although Mackenzie knew that if his life depended on rising and walking from the wagon he would not be able to redeem it at the price. "I seem to remember a woman around me a good deal," he said, not trusting himself to look at Dad. "It wasn't--was it----?" Mackenzie felt his face flush, and cursed his weakness, but he could not pronounce the name that filled his heart. "Yes, it was Rabbit," said Dad, catching him up without the slightest understanding of his stammering. "She's been stickin' to you night and day. I tell you, John, them Indians can't be beat doctorin' a man up when he's been chawed up by a animal." "I want to thank her," Mackenzie said, feeling his heart swing very low indeed. "You won't see much of her now since you've come to your head, I reckon she'll be passin' you over to me to look after. She's shy that way. Yes, sir, any time I git bit up by man or beast, or shot up or knifed, I'll take Rabbit ahead of any doctor you can find. Them Indians they know the secrets of it. I wouldn't be afraid to stand and let a rattlesnake bite me till it fainted if Rabbit was around. She can cure it." But Mackenzie knew from the odor of his bandages that Rabbit was not depending on her Indian knowledge in his case, or not entirely so. There was the odor of carbolic acid, and he was conscious all along that his head had been shaved around the wound in approved surgical fashion. He reasoned that Rabbit went about prepared with the emergency remedies of civilization, and put it down to her schooling at the Catholic sisters' hands. "Was there anybody--did anybody else come around?" Mackenzie inquired. "Tim's been by a couple of times. Oh, well--Joan." "Oh, Joan," said Mackenzie, trying to make it sound as if he had no concern in Joan at all. But his voice trembled, and life came bounding up in him again with glad, wild spring. "She was over the day after you got hurt, but she ain't been back," said Dad, with such indifference that he must have taken it for granted that Mackenzie held no tenderness for her, indeed. "I met Charley yesterday; he told me Joan was over home. Mary's out here with him--she's the next one to Joan, you know." Mackenzie's day clouded; his sickness fell over him again, taking the faint new savor out of life. Joan was indifferent; she did not care. Then hope came on its white wings to excuse her. "Is she sick?" he inquired. "Who--Mary?" "Joan. Is she all right?"