ck some nice, good meddy off a sage bush?"

"I guess so." Ward spoke drowsily. "Give me some more coffee and I
can."

"Oh, you're the pesteringest patient! I told you coffee isn't good for
what ails you, but I suppose--" She poured him another cup of coffee,
weakened it with hot water, and let him drink it straight. After all,
perhaps the hot drink would induce the perspiration that would break
the fever. She pulled up the wolf-skins and the extra blankets he had
tossed aside in his feverish restlessness and covered him to his chin.

"If you don't move till I come back," she promised, "I'll maybe give
you another cup--after you've filled up on sage tea." With that
qualified hope to cheer him, she left him.

She did not spend all her time picking sage twigs. A bush grew at the
corner of the cabin within easy reach. She went first down to the
stable and led Blue inside and unsaddled him. Rattler was standing
near, and she tried to lead him in also, but he fled from her approach.
She found the pitchfork and managed to scratch a few forkfuls of hay
down from a corner of the stack; enough to fill a manger for Blue and
to leave a little heap beside the stable for Rattler.

When she was leaving the stable to return to the house, however, she
changed her plan a little. She went back, carried the small pile of
hay into the stable, and filled another manger. Then she took down the
wire gate of the hay corral and laid it flat alongside the fence.
Rattler would go in to the stack, and she would shut him in. That
would simplify the catching of him when he was needed. She would find
something in which to carry water to him, if he was too frisky to lead
to the creek. Billy Louise was no coward with horses, but she
recognized certain fixed limitations in the management of a snuffy
brute like Rattler. He was not like Blue, whom she could bully and
tease and coax. Rattler was distinctly a man's saddle-horse. Billy
Louise had never done more than pat his shoulder after he was caught
and saddled and, therefore, prepared for handling. She foresaw some
perturbation of spirit in regard to Rattler.

Ward was lying quiet when she went in, except that he was waving her
handkerchief to and fro by the corners to cool it. Billy Louise took
it from him, wet it again with cold water, and scolded him for getting
his arms from under the covers. That, she said, was no nice way for a
hookin'-cough man to do.

Ward meekly subm