He went outside and waited beside his horse until the doctor was ready. It seemed an eternity, the awful wait. How serene the still beauty of the autumn night! Not a breath of wind stirred. The full moon hung in the sky straight overhead, flooding the earth with silver radiance, marking in clear and vivid lines the shadows of the trees on the ground. Bitter wonder and rebellion filled his young soul. How could God sit unmoved among those shining stars and leave his mother to die! The doctor came at last and they started. In vain he urged that they gallop. "I won't do it, sir!" the old man snapped. "Your horse has come thirty miles. I'll not let you kill him and I'm not going to kill myself plunging over a rough road at night." They reached the cabin at daylight. The Boy saw the glow of the flame in the big fireplace through the woods and his heart beat high with new hope. Now that the doctor was here he felt sure her life could be saved. The Boy stood close by his side when he felt her pulse, and looked at the strange whitish-brown coating on her tongue. "You can do something, Doctor?" he asked anxiously. "Yes," was the short answer. He asked for a towel and bowl and opened his saddlebags. He examined the point of his lancet and bared the slender arm. "What are ye goin' ter do?" Tom asked with a frown. "Bleed her, of course. It's the only thing to do----" The Boy suddenly pushed himself between the doctor and the bed and looked up into his stern face with a resolute stare: "You shan't do it. I don't know nothin' much about doctorin' but I got sense enough to know that'll kill her--and you shan't do it!" The doctor looked angrily at the father. "I say so, too," Tom replied. "She's too weak for that." With a snort of anger, the old man threw the lancet into his saddlebags, snapped them together and strode through the cabin door. The Boy followed him wistfully to the stable, and when he seized the bridle to put on the horse, caught his hand and looked up: "Please don't go," he begged. "I'm mighty sorry I made you mad. I didn't go to do it. You see----" his voice faltered--"I love her so I just couldn't let you cut her arm open and see her bleed. I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. Won't you stay and help us? Can't ye do somethin' else for her? I'll pay ye. I'll go work for ye a whole year or five years if ye want me--if you'll just save her--just save her, that's all--don't go--please don't!" Something in the child's anguish found the rough old man's heart. His eyes grew misty for a moment, he slipped one arm about the Boy's shoulders and drew him close. "God knows I'd stay and do something if I could, Sonny, but I don't know what to do. I'm not sure I'm right about the bleeding or I'd stay and make you help me do it. But I'm not sure--I'm not sure--and I can do no good by staying. Keep her warm, give her all the good food her stomach will retain. That's all I can tell you. She's in God's hands."