y away."

Curtis did not at once reply. He gravely took the empty bowl from
Sybil's hand, and it was upon her that his eyes rested as he finally
said, "Do you think you could manage without me?"

She looked up with perfect steadiness.

"Certainly I could. Please do as you think right!"

"What about Beelzebub?" he said.

Mercer made a restless movement.

"He will be on his legs again in a day or two. One of the men must look
after him."

"I shall look after him," Sybil said, with a calmness of resolution that
astounded both her hearers.

Mercer put his hand on her shoulder, but said nothing. It was Curtis who
spoke with the voice of authority.

"You will have to take care of her," he said bluntly. "Bear in mind what
I said to you last night! I will show you how to treat the arm. And then
I think I had better go. It may prevent an epidemic."

Thereafter he assumed so businesslike an air that he seemed to Sybil to
be completely transformed. There never had been much deference in his
attitude towards Mercer, but he treated him now without the smallest
ceremony. He was as a man suddenly awakened from a long lethargy. From
that moment to the moment of his departure his activity was unceasing.

Sybil and Mercer watched him finally ride away, and it was not till he
was actually gone that the fact that she was left absolutely alone with
her husband came home to her.

With a sense of shock she realized it, and those words of
Beelzebub's--the words that she had been so resolutely forcing into the
back of her mind--came crowding back upon her with a vividness and
persistence that were wholly beyond her control.

What was she going to do, she wondered? What could she do with this
awful, this unspeakable doubt pressing ever upon her? It might all be a
mistake, a hideous mistake on Beelzebub's part. She had no great faith
in his intelligence. It might be that by some evil chance his muddled
brain had registered the name of Bowker Creek in connection with the
fight which she did not for a moment doubt had at some time taken
place. Beelzebub was never reliable in the matter of details, and he
had not been able to answer her question regarding the place.

Over and over again she tried to convince herself that her fear was
groundless, and over and over again the words came back to her, refusing
to be forgotten or ignored--"the white man from Bowker Creek." Who was
this white man whom Mercer had fought, this man who had tr