ven worse. She remembered how ill she had become
and how she had struggled to fight off the sickness, in a little lone
room of a top floor. But as soon as people had come she had been
bundled away to the hospital. A wagon had come, with a doctor in a
white coat, and they had clattered off. The people in the hospital had
seemed interested, indifferent, friendly, according to their several
dispositions, but she had been taken care of, and fed, and washed, and
some of the nurses had sweet faces, after all, and after a time she
had recovered. All this had seemed rather terrible at the time, but
what was it compared to this lying desperately ill in a freezing hut,
too feeble to procure even the cup of water craved by a dry tongue and
lips that were parched?

"I can surely walk that distance," she cried, but the child shook her
head again.

"You no good for walk far," she asserted. "You jus' fall down dead.
Twelve mile and snow deep some place. Moch cole as freeze you quick
when tired."

"Then what's to be done?" asked Madge, entering the house again,
followed by the child. "I think I ought to try to get to Carcajou."

"Please don't," said the man, hoarsely, looking as if he had awakened
suddenly, and lifting himself up on one elbow painfully. "I'll--I'll
be all right to-morrow, sure--surest thing you know, and--and I'll
take you down myself, with old--old Maigan."

"Please hurry back to your house and tell your mother to come over as
soon as she can," Madge told the child. "Perhaps your father could go.
I didn't think of it at first."

"Now you spik' lak' you know someting," said the girl, with refreshing
frankness. "I 'urry all right. Get modder quick."

She started, her little legs flying over the snow, and Madge closed
the door again.

She put a little more wood in the stove and sat down by the bunk. The
man's eyes were closed again. It was strange that he had heard her so
distinctly, and that he had gathered the impression that she wanted to
get to Carcajou on her own account. And--and he had said he would take
her himself. Again his first thought had been to do something for her,
to be of service to her.

One of his hands was lying outside the blankets, and instinctively
Madge placed her own upon it. She was frightened to feel how hot it
was. The pulse her fingers sought was beating wildly. She felt glad
that she was there. The man didn't care for her and she--well, she
supposed that she disliked him, but sh