sat taking her turn, suddenly he asked had he been sick long, and looked at her with a quieted eye. The wandering seemed to drop from him at a stroke, leaving him altogether himself. He lay very feeble, and inquired once or twice of his state and how he came here; nor was anything left in his memory of even coming to the spring where he had been found. When the doctor arrived, he pronounced that it would be long--or very short. He praised their clean water treatment; the wound was fortunately well up on the shoulder, and gave so far no bad signs; there were not any bad signs; and the blood and strength of the patient had been as few men’s were; each hour was now an hour nearer certainty, and meanwhile--meanwhile the doctor would remain as long as he could. He had many inquiries to satisfy. Dusty fellows would ride up, listen to him, and reply, as they rode away, “Don’t yu’ let him die, Doc.” And Judge Henry sent over from Sunk Creek to answer for any attendance or medicine that might help his foreman. The country was moved with concern and interest; and in Molly’s ears its words of good feeling seemed to unite and sum up a burden, “Don’t yu’ let him die, Doc.” The Indians who had done this were now in military custody. They had come unpermitted from a southern reservation, hunting, next thieving, and as the slumbering spirit roused in one or two of the young and ambitious, they had ventured this in the secret mountains, and perhaps had killed a trapper found there. Editors immediately reared a tall war out of it; but from five Indians in a guard-house waiting punishment not even an editor can supply spar for more than two editions, and if the recent alarm was still a matter of talk anywhere, it was not here in the sick-room. Whichever way the case should turn, it was through Molly alone (the doctor told her) that the wounded man had got this chance--this good chance, he related. And he told her she had not done a woman’s part, but a man’s part, and now had no more to do; no more till the patient got well, and could thank her in his own way, said the doctor, smiling, and supposing things that were not so--misled perhaps by Mrs. Taylor. “I’m afraid I’ll be gone by the time he is well,” said Molly, coldly; and the discreet physician said ah, and that she would find Bennington quite a change from Bear Creek. But Mrs. Taylor spoke otherwise, and at that the girl said: “I shall stay as long as I am needed. I will nurse him. I want to nurse him. I will do everything for him that I can!” she exclaimed, with force. “And that won’t be anything, deary,” said Mrs. Taylor, harshly. “A year of nursing don’t equal a day of sweetheart.”