t rather have borne his pain
herself than to have helped him turn upon his back as she did. To do
more for him than this was impossible, and again she besought him to say
how he was hurt.

Finally, he opened his eyes and glanced about him, then angrily shook
his fist toward a projecting tree-root which had been hidden from his
sight by a group of ferns and over which he had stumbled.

"That's it! That's the mis'able thing 'at done it!" he cried, then
groaned again, but weakly. The pain had suddenly become so severe as to
turn him faint while the brilliant branches overhead began to dance and
sway before his dizzy sight as no wind could make them do. "I--I'm
gettin' light-headed. Help me up, Keehoty. I'm broke. I'm broke all to
smash. My leg--my side--oh, oh, ouch!"

[Illustration: "'I FEEL SO QUEER EVERY LITTLE SPELL, AN' I MUST GET
HOME'"]

His increasing pallor frightened Katharine till pity overcame
repugnance, and with a strength unknown before she clasped her arms
about his neck and struggled to lift him to his feet, all the while
protesting: "You mustn't be broken! You can't be. Just a little crooked
root like that and a big man like you. Not quite so hard, please! Not
quite so tight! 'Cause you're pulling me down instead of me you up.
There, that's better!"

Susanna had often declared that Moses was "just like ary other man,
scared to death if even his little toe ached," and it was true that he
was so unused to illness that his few attacks of it had always
frightened him. Yet now he realized that something far worse than
ordinary had befallen, and that he must rally his grit and his strength
together. With an heroic effort he got upon his feet--or foot, for one
was useless, and braced himself against the tree-trunk beside them.

"Now, sissy, go find an' fetch my axe that got flung off my shoulder
when I stumbled. I didn't think when I brought it to chop with 'twould
prove a crutch for broken bones. Oh, I wish we wasn't so far from home.
I wish you'd kep' in the right road an' not come flarrickin' clear off
here out the beaten track."

"Why--isn't this the right, the shortest way back?" asked Katharine,
surprised.

"No, 'tain't. I s'pose all trees look alike to city gals, but don't stop
to gabble. Find the axe. Pick up your basket. I feel so queer every
little spell, an' I must get home. That shin-bone's broke, true as
preachin', an' six seven my ribs, by the feel of 'em, for my foot
wobbles 'round as i