beat of horses' hoofs echoed down the mountain road. His nurse and
messenger were coming. He decided at once to move Mary to his own house.
She must regain consciousness in new surroundings or her chance of
survival would be slender. To awake in this miserable cabin, the scene
of the tragedy she had witnessed, might be instantly fatal. Besides she
must not yet know that the brute who had choked her was alive and might
still hold the power of life and death over her frail body. She believed
him dead. It was best so. He might be dead and buried before she
recovered consciousness. The fever that burned her brain would
completely cloud reason for days.

He hastily improvised a stretcher with a blanket and two strong
quilting-poles which stood in the corner of the room. Nance helped him
without question. She obeyed his slightest suggestion with childlike
submission.

He placed Mary on the stretcher, wrapped her body in another warm
blanket and turned to his nurse and messenger:

"Carry her to my house. Walk slowly and rest whenever you wish.
Don't wake her. Tell Aunt Abbie to put her to bed in the south room
overlooking the valley. Don't leave her a minute, Betty. She's in the
first collapse of brain fever. You know what to do. I'll be there in an
hour. You come back here, John. I want you."

The mountaineer nodded and seized one end of the stretcher. The nurse
took up the other and the Doctor held wide the cabin door as they passed
out.

For three weeks he fought the grim battle with Death for the two young
lives the Christmas tragedy had thrust into his hands. He gave his
entire time day and night to the desperate struggle.

When pneumonia had developed and Jim's life hung by a hair, he slept on
the couch in the living-room of the cabin and had Nance make for herself
a bed on the floor of the kitchen.

The old woman remained an obedient child. She cooked the Doctor's meals
and did the work about the house and yard as if nothing had disturbed
her habits of lonely plodding. She believed implicitly all that was told
her. Her son had pneumonia from cold he had taken in the long drive from
Asheville. The house must be kept quiet. John Sanders was helping her
nurse him. She was sure the Doctor would save him.

Even the knife with which she had stabbed him made no impression on
her numbed senses. The Doctor had scoured every trace of blood from the
blade and put it back in its place on the shelf, lest she should miss it