Ward watched her as intently as if his life depended on her speed. He had lain in that bunk for nearly six weeks with the coffee-pot sitting in plain sight on the back of the stove, twelve feet or so from his reach, and with the can of coffee standing in plain sight on the rough board shelf against the wall by the window. And he had craved coffee almost as badly as a drunkard craves whisky. The sound of the fire snapping in the stove was like music to him. Later, the smell of the coffee coming briskly to the boiling-point made his mouth water with desire. And when Billy Louise jabbed two little slits in a cream can with the point of a butcher knife and poured a thin stream of canned milk into a big, white granite cup, Ward's eyes turned traitor to his love for the girl and dwelt hungrily upon the swift movements of her hands. "How much sugar, patient?" Billy Louise turned toward him with the tomato-can sugar-bowl in her hands. "None. I want to taste the coffee, this trip." "Oh, all right! It's the worst thing you could think of, but that's the way with a patient. Patients always want what they mustn't have." "Sure--get it, too." Ward spoke between long, satisfying gulps. "How's your other patient, Wilhemina? How's mommie?" "Oh, Ward! She's dead--mommie's dead!" Billy Louise broke down unexpectedly and completely. She went down on her knees beside the bed and cried as she had not cried since she looked the last time at mommie's still face, held in that terrifying calm. She cried until Ward's excited mutterings warned her that she must pull herself together. She did, somehow, in spite of her sorrow and her worry and that day's succession of emotional shocks. She did it because Ward was sick--very sick, she was afraid--and there was so much that she must do for him. "You be s-still," she commanded brokenly, fighting for her former safe cheerfulness. "I'm all right. Pity yourself, if you've got to pity somebody. I--can stand--my trouble. I haven't got any broken leg and--hookin'-cough." She managed a laugh then and took Ward's hand from her hair and laid it down on the blankets. "Now we won't talk about things any more. You've got to have something done for that cold on your lungs." She rose and stood looking down at him with puckered eyebrows. "Mommie would say you ought to have a good sweat," she decided. "Got any ginger?" "I dunno. I guess not," Ward muttered confusedly. "Well, I'll go out and find some sage, then, and give you sage tea. That's another cure-all. Say, Ward, I saw Rattler down the creek. He's looking fine and dandy. He came whinnying down out of that draw, to meet us; just tickled to death to see somebody." "Don't blame him," croaked Ward. "It's enough to tickle anybody." Her voice seemed to steady his straying fancies. "How're--the cattle--looking?"