blankets in; we can make up some sort of place on
the floor to sleep. One of us will have to watch all night. Cranny, you
must go to bed, do you hear? Come and sit by Mick till I put Granny to
bed."

By degrees they got things shipshape--put the old woman to bed, and
cleaned and dressed Mick's wounds. Then they settled down for the long
night in the sick-room. A strange sick-room it was; but many a hospital
is less healthy. Through wide cracks between the slabs there came in the
cool, fresh air that in itself is worth more than all the medicines
in the pharmacopoeia. The patient had sunk into an uneasy slumber when
Ellen made her dispositions for the night.

"You go and lie down now," she said, "in the other room, on the sofa. I
will call you if I want you. Get all the sleep you can, and in a couple
of hours you can take my place. He may talk, but don't let that disturb
you. I will call out loud enough if I want you."

"Mind you do," said the Englishman. "I sleep like a blessed top, you
know. Sleep anywhere. Well, good-night for the present. He looks a
little better since you washed him, doesn't he?"

He threw himself on the couch in the inner room, and before long a
titanic snore showed that he had not over-rated his sleeping powers.

Ellen Harriott sat by Red Mick's bedside and thought over the events of
the last few weeks. As she thought she half-dozed, but woke with a start
to find her patient broad awake again and trying to get at something
that was under his bunk. Quietly she drew him back, for his struggles
with Carew had left him weak as a child.

He looked at her with crazed eyes.

"The paper," he said, "for the love of God, the paper. I have to take it
to Gavan. 'Twill win the case. The paper."

She tried to pacify him, but nothing would do but that she should get
the mysterious paper. At last, to humour him, she dived under the bunk
and found an iron camp-oven, and in it a single envelope. Just to see
what was exciting him she opened the envelope, and found a crumpled
piece of paper which she read over to herself. It was the original
certificate of the marriage between Patrick Henry Keogh and Margaret
Donohoe; if Ellen had only known it, she held in her hand the evidence
to sweep away all her friend's troubles. It so happened, however, that
it conveyed nothing to her mind. She had heard much about Considine, but
not a word about Keogh, and the name "Margaret Donohoe" did not strike
her half-asleep mi