f! Where did they
find me?" she said, turning to Miss Morvin.

"I picked you up just outside the door," replied the housekeeper.

"Then they did not see me?" said Mrs. MacGlowrie.

"Who's they?" responded the housekeeper with more directness than
grammatical accuracy.

"The people in the dining room. I was just opening the door--and I felt
this coming on--and--I reckon I had just sense enough to shut the door
again before I went off."

"Then that accounts for what Jim Slocum said," uttered Miss Morvin
triumphantly. "He was in the dining room talkin' with the new preacher,
when he allowed he heard the door open and shut behind him. Then he
heard a kind of slump outside and opened the door again just to find you
lyin' there, and to rush off and get me. And that's why he was so mad
at the preacher!--for he says he just skurried away without offerin'
to help. He allows the preacher may be a pow'ful exhorter--but he ain't
worth much at 'works.'"

"Some men can't bear to be around when a woman's up to that sort of
foolishness," said the widow, with a faint attempt at a smile, but a
return of her paleness.

"Hadn't you better lie down again?" said the doctor solicitously.

"I'm all right now," returned Mrs. MacGlowrie, struggling to her feet;
"Morvin will look after me till the shakiness goes. But it was mighty
touching and neighborly to come in, Doctor," she continued, succeeding
at last in bringing up a faint but adorable smile, which stirred Blair's
pulses. "If I were my own dog--you couldn't have treated me better!"

With no further excuse for staying longer, Blair was obliged to
depart--yet reluctantly, both as lover and physician. He was by no means
satisfied with her condition. He called to inquire the next day--but she
was engaged and sent word to say she was "better."

In the excitement attending the advent of the new preacher the slight
illness of the charming widow was forgotten. He had taken the
settlement by storm. His first sermon at Laurel Spring exceeded even
the extravagant reputation that had preceded him. Known as the "Inspired
Cowboy," a common unlettered frontiersman, he was said to have developed
wonderful powers of exhortatory eloquence among the Indians, and
scarcely less savage border communities where he had lived, half
outcast, half missionary. He had just come up from the Southern
agricultural districts, where he had been, despite his rude antecedents,
singularly effective with women and