he wound, shook her head
when she first saw the direction of the cut. She found on a closer
examination that the knife-blade had been deflected by a rib, and
had just missed the lungs. The wound was bathed, sewed up, and
bandaged, and the greatest precaution taken to prevent the sufferer
from loosening the linen. Every day when Mrs. Zane returned from the
bedside of the young man she would be met at the door by Betty, who,
in that time of suspense, had lost her bloom, and whose pale face
showed the effects of sleepless nights.

"Betty, would you mind going over to the Fort and relieving Mrs.
Martin an hour or two?" said Mrs. Zane one day as she came home,
looking worn and weary. "We are both tired to death, and Nell Metzar
was unable to come. Clarke is unconscious, and will not know you,
besides he is sleeping now."

Betty hurried over to Capt. Boggs' cabin, next the blockhouse, where
Alfred lay, and with a palpitating heart and a trepidation wholly
out of keeping with the brave front she managed to assume, she
knocked gently on the door.

"Ah, Betty, 'tis you, bless your heart," said a matronly little
woman who opened the door. "Come right in. He is sleeping now, poor
fellow, and it's the first real sleep he has had. He has been raving
crazy forty-eight hours."

"Mrs. Martin, what shall I do?" whispered Betty.

"Oh, just watch him, my dear," answered the elder woman.

"If you need me send one of the lads up to the house for me. I shall
return as soon as I can. Keep the flies away--they are
bothersome--and bathe his head every little while. If he wakes and
tries to sit up, as he does sometimes, hold him back. He is as weak
as a cat. If he raves, soothe him by talking to him. I must go now,
dearie."

Betty was left alone in the little room. Though she had taken a seat
near the bed where Alfred lay, she had not dared to look at him.
Presently conquering her emotion, Betty turned her gaze on the bed.
Alfred was lying easily on his back, and notwithstanding the warmth
of the day he was covered with a quilt. The light from the window
shone on his face. How deathly white it was! There was not a vestige
of color in it; the brow looked like chiseled marble; dark shadows
underlined the eyes, and the whole face was expressive of weariness
and pain.

There are times when a woman's love is all motherliness. All at once
this man seemed to Betty like a helpless child. She felt her heart
go out to the poor sufferer with a