"Well," he said, "looking for timber rights is apt to prove expensive, too. I had a haunting fear I might be lame, until the doctor banished it. I'd better own that I'd no great confidence in Carroll's surgery." Carroll, keeping strictly to the line the others had chosen, made him an ironical bow, but Evelyn was not to be deterred. "It was foolish of you to be troubled," she declared. "It isn't a fault to be wounded in an honourable fight, and even if the mark remains there is no reason why one should be ashamed of it." Mrs. Nairn glanced at the girl rather sharply, but Carroll came to his comrade's assistance. "Strictly speaking, there wasn't a wound," he pointed out. "Fortunately it was what is known as a simple fracture. If it had been anything else, I'm inclined to think I couldn't have treated it." Nairn chuckled, as if this met with his approval, but his wife turned round and they heard a patter of footsteps on the stairs. "Yon bell has kept on ringing since we came up," she said. "I left word I was no to be disturbed. Weel"--as the door opened--"what is it, Minnie?" "The reception-room's plumb full," announced the maid, who was lately from the bush. "If any more folks come along, I won't know where to put them." Now the door was open, Evelyn could hear a murmur of voices on the floor below, and next moment the bell rang violently again, which struck her as a testimonial to the injured man. Vane had not spent a long time in Vancouver, but he had the gift of making friends. Having heard of the sloop's arrival, they had come to inquire for him, and there was obviously a number of them. Mrs. Nairn glanced interrogatively at Carroll. "It does not look as if they could be got rid of by a message." "I guess he's fit to see them," Carroll answered. "We'll hold the levée. If he'd only let me, I'd like to pose him a bit." Mrs. Nairn, with Evelyn's assistance, did so instead, rearranging the cushions about the man, in spite of his confused and half-indignant protests; and during the next half hour the room was generally full. People walked in, made sympathetic inquiries, or exchanged cheerful banter, until Mrs. Nairn forcibly dismissed the last of them. After this she declared that Vane must go to sleep, and paying no heed to his assertion that he had not the least wish to do so, she led her remaining companions away. A couple of hours had passed when she handed Evelyn a large tumbler containing a preparation of whipped-up eggs and milk. "Ye might take him this and ask if he would like anything else," she said. "I'm weary of the stairs and I would not trust Minnie. She's handiest at spilling things." "It's the third and I'd better say firmly, the limit," Carroll remarked. Then he assumed an aggrieved expression as Evelyn moved off with a tray. "I can't see why I couldn't have gone. I believe I've discharged my duties as nurse satisfactorily."