Virginia recovered herself quickly, saying with a wan smile: "You came just in time, Doctor. I am lost and need help. I was going to you, anyhow." Each one's face was so muffled against the wind that the eyes and lips and a bit of the cheeks alone were visible. "Not a bad-looking woman for all the Kansas tan," the doctor thought. "She has a voice like a true Virginian and fine eyes and teeth. But any woman who bundles up for a horseback ride across the plains on a day like this isn't out for a beauty show contest. I've seen eyes like that before, though, and as to her voice--" "I am Mrs. Asher Aydelot from the Grass River Valley," Virginia went on. "There are only three settlers out there now, Mr. Shirley and my husband and myself. Mr. Shirley is very sick with pneumonia, and Mr. Aydelot could not leave him, so I started to Carey's Crossing to see if you could come to him. I missed the trail somewhere. I was trying to help, but I failed, you see." The doctor was looking at her with a puzzled expression which she thought was born of his sympathy. To the mention of her failing he responded quickly: "No, Mrs. Aydelot, you succeeded. I had started to Shirley's myself on personal business, and I was letting some whim turn me aside. If you had kept the trail we should have missed each other, for I was on my way to Big Wolf Creek, a good distance away, and your leaving the trail and wandering down here was providential for Shirley. Shall I show you on to the Crossing?" "Oh, no, Doctor, if you will only come back with me. I don't want to go on," Virginia insisted. "You are a regular westerner, Mrs. Aydelot," Carey declared. "But you haven't been out here long. I heard of your passing through our town late last summer. I was up on Big Wolf then and failed to see you. I know something of your husband, but I have never met him." He helped her to mount her horse and together they sought the trail and followed it westward in the face of the wind. * * * * * Near midnight down in Jim Shirley's cabin Asher Aydelot turned from a lull in the sick man's ravings to see Dr. Horace Carey entering the door with a pair of saddle bags in his hand. "Hello, sir! Aydelot? I'm Carey, the doctor." Then as his quick eye took in the haggard face of the man before him, he said cheerily: "Everything fit as a fiddle up your way. I left your cabin snug and warm as a prairie dog's hole, and your wife is sound asleep by this time, with a big dog on guard. Yes, I understand," he added, as Asher silently gripped his hand. "You've died a thousand deaths today. Forget it, and give me a hand here. My own are too stiff, and I must get these wet boots off. I always go at my work dry shod." He had pulled a pair of heavy shoes from the saddle bags, and was removing his outer coat and sundry scarfs, warming his hands between whiles and seemingly unconscious of the sick man's presence.