"Now don't begin to worry till I tell you there's need, child," he said half irritably. "All that's necessary is for you to look after that medicine. Noland 'll come out all right with you to nurse him. I wouldn't mind being sick myself, Hunter, with her to hold the spoon," he said, trying to put a merry face on the matter. "Did it ever occur to you that you were a lucky dog to come into this country and run off with the nicest girl in it the first year you were here?" As the doctor drove home the next morning, he said to himself: "I guess I fixed it about that medicine;" then, his mind reverting to the conversation at the gate, he added, "I wasn't goin' to tell her about that horse; let him tell her himself. Blamed fool! I think I headed off his issuing orders about that sick-bed too. Poor little girl! Now if she'd only married Noland!" The old doctor gave a long, low whistle as a sudden thought struck him, but he put it away, and being a busy man thought no more about it for weeks. CHAPTER XXII "THERE ARE SOME THINGS WE HAVE TO SETTLE FOR OURSELVES" John's being away from home those first days of Hugh's illness--he had gone to Colebyville to dispose of Patsie's body and secure a new team to finish harvesting--kept him from getting the run of the affairs of the sickroom, and enabled Elizabeth to assume the care of the invalid in her own way. An idea once fixed in John Hunter's head was fixed, and having accepted the plan of Doctor Morgan that Elizabeth was to be in sole charge of care and medicine, he went his way without thrusting his suggestions upon her, and Elizabeth, having learned not to discuss things with him, did not speak of her work nor of anything connected with the invalid. In fact, as soon as John entered the sickroom she went out, as one of the best ways she knew of to avoid accidents of conversation. John came to Hugh's bedside but little, supposing that he needed rest, and willing to sacrifice his all to the comfort of the pale invalid. With the tears of a woman in his heart if not in his eyes, John watched from afar the face of the man he had been the unconscious means of injuring, and tiptoed about the outer rooms with a fear of death which only John could feel. Another thing kept him out of the sickroom: impressed with the idea that his carelessness in the purchase of the first team had led up to this trouble, he had gone to the other extreme in replacing them, and had paid three hundred and twenty-five dollars for one of the best and most thoroughly proven teams in the country. There were no available funds and he had been obliged to give a note for them; this must in time come to Hugh's notice, and John had a distinct remembrance of a former note, and did not wish to repeat the experience. Luther, who came often to see Hugh, had spoken to John of Patsie's death in Elizabeth's presence, and after the first pained expression of surprise and grief, Elizabeth had never mentioned it again.