He had fallen again into insensibility and she rinsed and dressed his wounds, working with the quiet impersonal certainty of touch that did not betray the inner turmoil of her soul. But McWilliams, his eyes following her every motion and alert to anticipate her needs, saw that the color had washed from her face and that she was controlling herself only to meet the demands of the occasion. As she was finishing, the sheepman opened his eyes and looked at her. “You are not to speak or ask questions. You have been wounded and we are going to take care of you,” she ordered. “That’s right good of y’u. I ce’tainly feel mighty trifling.” His wide eyes traveled round till they fell on the foreman. “Y’u see I came back to help fill your hospital. Am I there now? Where am I?” His gaze returned to Helen with the sudden irritation of the irresponsible sick. “You are at the Lazy D, in my room. You are not to worry about anything. Everything’s all right.” He took her at her word and his eyes closed; but presently he began to mutter unconnected words and phrases. When his lids lifted again there was a wilder look in his eyes, and she knew that delirium was beginning. At intervals it lasted for long; indeed, until the doctor came next morning in the small hours. He talked of many things Helen Messiter did not understand, of incidents in his past life, some of them jerky with the excitement of a tense moment, others apparently snatches of talk with relatives. It was like the babbling of a child, irrelevant and yet often insistent. He would in one breath give orders connected with the lambing of his sheep, in the next break into football talk, calling out signals and imploring his men to hold them or to break through and get the ball. Once he broke into curses, but his very oaths seemed to come from a clean heart and missed the vulgarity they might have had. Again his talk rambled inconsequently over his youth, and he would urge himself or someone else of the same name to better life. “Ned, Ned, remember your mother,” he would beseech. “She asked me to look after you. Don’t go wrong.” Or else it would be, “Don’t disgrace the general, Ned. You’ll break his heart if you blacken the old name.” To this theme he recurred repeatedly, and she noticed that when he imagined himself in the East his language was correct and his intonation cultured, though still with a suggestion of a Southern softness. But when he spoke of her his speech lapsed into the familiar drawl of Cattleland. “I ain’t such a sweep as y’u think, girl. Some day I’ll sure tell y’u all about it, and how I have loved y’u ever since y’u scooped me up in your car. You’re the gamest little lady! To see y’u come a-sailin’ down after me, so steady and businesslike, not turning a hair when the bullets hummed—I sure do love y’u, Helen.” And then he fell upon her first name and called her by it a hundred times softly to himself.