aid Molly, fixing her eyes upon the speaker.

"No, deary. But before a lot of men--Taylor has told me about
it--Trampas spoke disrespectfully of you, and before them all he made
Trampas say he was a liar. That is what he did when you were almost
a stranger among us, and he had not started seeing so much of you. I
expect Trampas is the only enemy he ever had in this country. But he
would never let you know about that."

"No," whispered Molly; "I did not know."

"Steve!" the sick man now cried out, in poignant appeal. "Steve!" To the
women it was a name unknown,--unknown as was also this deep inward tide
of feeling which he could no longer conceal, being himself no longer.
"No, Steve," he said next, and muttering followed. "It ain't so!" he
shouted; and then cunningly in a lowered voice, "Steve, I have lied for
you."

In time Mrs. Taylor spoke some advice.

"You had better go to bed, child. You look about ready for the doctor
yourself."

"Then I will wait for him," said Molly.

So the two nurses continued to sit until darkness at the windows
weakened into gray, and the lamp was no more needed. Their patient was
rambling again. Yet, into whatever scenes he went, there in some guise
did the throb of his pain evidently follow him, and he lay hitching his
great shoulder as if to rid it of the cumbrance. They waited for the
doctor, not daring much more than to turn pillows and give what other
ease they could; and then, instead of the doctor, came a messenger,
about noon, to say he was gone on a visit some thirty miles beyond,
where Taylor had followed to bring him here as soon as might be. At this
Molly consented to rest and to watch, turn about; and once she was over
in her friend's house lying down, they tried to keep her there. But the
revolutionist could not be put down, and when, as a last pretext, Mrs.
Taylor urged the proprieties and conventions, the pale girl from Vermont
laughed sweetly in her face and returned to sit by the sick man. With
the approach of the second night his fever seemed to rise and master
him more completely than they had yet seen it, and presently it so raged
that the women called in stronger arms to hold him down. There were
times when he broke out in the language of the round-up, and Mrs. Taylor
renewed her protests. "Why," said Molly "don't you suppose I knew they
could swear?" So the dame, in deepening astonishment and affection, gave
up these shifts at decorum. Nor did the delirium run