believed that Jerry, too, was now out of the way.

About noon Juno came back for the first time from another world. She did
not open her eyes, but she heard voices and knew what they were saying.
Her mother was talking in the next room to somebody whom she called Jim.
Who could Jim be? And then she heard the man's voice. Her eyes opened
slowly on the nurse, her lips moved, but before she could frame the
question her heart throbbed so that she went back into unconsciousness
again. But the nurse saw and told, and when Juno came back again she saw
her husband and smiled without surprise or fright.

"I dreamed you were here," she whispered, "and I'm dreaming right now
that you are here. Why, I see you." Gently he took her face in his hands,
and when she felt his touch she looked at him wildly and the tears sprang.
From that day on she gained fast, and from the nurse, her mother, and the
neighbors she soon knew the story of Doctor Jim.

"So you thought Red King was my father," she said, "and that he was in
the penitentiary?" Doctor Jim nodded shamefacedly.

"Well, even that wouldn't have been so bad--not down here. And maybe
you thought I didn't want you to come on account of Jerry Lipps." Again
Doctor Jim nodded admission, and Juno laughed.

"I never thought of that, and if I had," she added proudly and
scornfully, "I never would have been afraid--for _you_."

"Then why didn't you want me to come?"

"I didn't know _you_--didn't know the big, _big_ man you are. Now I'm
shamed--and happy."

One morning, three weeks later, Jay Dawn and Lum Chapman brought up a
litter that Lum had made, and they two and Black King and Doctor Jim
made ready to carry Juno down the mountain. Jerry Lipps was passing in
the road when they bore her out the gate, and he started to sidle by
with averted eyes. Doctor Jim halted.

"Here, Jerry!" he called. "You take my place." And Jerry, red as an
oak leaf in autumn, stepped up to the litter, and up at her old lover
Juno smiled.

"Doc," said Jerry, "I got a job."

Behind, Pleasant Trouble swung along with Doctor Jim. Mother Camp followed
on horseback. People ran from every house to greet Juno, or from high on
the hillsides waved their hands and shouted "how-dyes" down to her. Soon
they were at the Mission, where St. Hilda and Uncle Jerry and Aunt Jane
were waiting on the porch, and where pale little boys and girls trooped
weakly from the tents to welcome her. And then at a signal from Doctor