A shutter near the bed was tightly closed and, in struggling to open it, Cassandra discovered it was broken at the hinges and had been nailed in place. David flew to her assistance and, wrenching out the nails, tore it free, letting in a flood of light upon the wretchedness around them. Then he turned his attention to the patient, a man of powerful frame, but lean almost to emaciation, who watched the young physician's face silently with widely opened blue eyes, their pale color intensified by the surrounding shock of matted, curling, vividly red hair and beard. It required but a few moments to ascertain that the man's condition was indeed critical. Cassandra had gone out and now returned with her hands full of dry pine sticks. Bending on one knee before the empty fireplace, she arranged them and hung a kettle over them full of fresh water. David turned and watched her light the fire. "Good. We shall need hot water immediately. How long since you have eaten?" he asked the man. "He hain't eat nothing all day," said the wife, who had returned and again stood in the door with all her flock, gazing at him. Then the woman grew plaintively garrulous about the trouble she had had "doin' fer him," and begged David to tell her "could he he'p 'im." At last Thryng put a hurried end to her talk by saying he could do nothing--nothing at all for her old man, unless she took herself and the children all away. She looked terror-stricken, and her mouth drew together in a stubborn, resentful line as if in some way he had precipitated ill luck upon them by his coming. Cassandra at once took her basket and walked out toward the stream, and they all followed, leaving David and the father in sole possession of the place. Then he turned to the bed and began a kindly explanation. He found the man more intelligent and much more tractable than the woman, but it was hard to make him believe that he must inevitably lose either his life or his foot, and that they had not an hour--not a half hour--to spare, but must decide at once. David's manner, gentle, but firmly urgent, at last succeeded. The big man broke down and wept weakly, but yielded; only he stipulated that his wife must not be told. "No, no! She and the children must be kept away; but I need help. Is there no one--no man whom we can get to come here quickly?" "They is nobody--naw--I reckon not." David was distressed, but he searched about until he found an old battered pail in which to prepare his antiseptic, and busied himself in replenishing the fire and boiling the water; all the time his every move was watched by the hound and the pathetic blue eyes of his master.