. The old man lay in his hospital cot till the great frame
had wasted fairly to the big bones, following her movements when she
came into the room with strange, questioning, unrecognizing eyes, yet
always quieted and soothed by her presence, so that she felt urged to
give him every moment she could steal from her work. The hurts on his
head, which were mere scalp wounds, healed over; the surgeon at the
hospital was unable to find any indentation or injury to the skull
itself which would account for the old man's condition. They talked for
a long time of an operation, and did finally trephine, without result.
They would make an X-ray photograph, they said, when he should be strong
enough to stand it, as a means of further investigation.

Meantime his expenses, though made fairly nominal to her, cut into the
money which Johnnie could send to her mother, and she was full of
anxiety for the helpless little family left without head or protector up
in that gash of the wind-grieved mountains on the flank of Big Unaka.

In these days Shade Buckheath vacillated from the suppliant attitude to
the threatening. Johnnie never knew when she met him which would be
uppermost; and since he had wearied out her gratitude and liking, she
cared little. One thing surprised and touched her a bit, and that was
that Shade used to meet her of an evening when she would be coming from
the hospital, and ask eagerly after the welfare of Uncle Pros. He
finally begged her to get him a chance to see the old man, and she did
so, but his presence seemed to have such a disturbing effect on the
patient that the doctors prohibited further visits.

"Well, I done just like you told me to, and them cussed sawboneses won't
let me go back no more," Shade reported to Pap Himes that evening. "Old
Pros just swelled hisself out like a toad and hollered at me time I got
in the room. He's sure crazy all right. He looks like he couldn't last
long, but them that heirs what he has will git the writin' that tells
whar the silver mine's at. Johnnie's liable to find that writin' any
day; or he may come to hisself and tell her."

"Well, for God's sake," retorted Pap Himes testily, "why don't you wed
the gal and be done with it? You wed Johnnie Consadine and get that
writin', and I'll never tell on you 'bout the old man and such; and you
and me'll share the mine."

Shade gave him a black look.

"You're a good talker," he said sententiously. "If I could _do_ things
as ea