n't going to let no book-taught
medico worry me yet! Men get well because they are bound to get well,
or they die because it's their time to die--and he's got too much to
live for now!"

Her hopeless face made deception impossible, but Joe comforted her,
just the same. He persuaded her to eat with him, and when he found
that his conversation made the waiting easier for her, he waxed quite
garrulous.

"Why, he's been hurt almost as bad as this, once before," he rambled
on, "but he's still alive, ain't he?"

The girl's eyes livened at that.

"Once, down on the island, he mixed in an affair in which most men
would not have meddled. And he got it from behind that time, too, only
it was with a knife."

"He never told me," murmured the girl.

"It ain't likely he would," the other stated with finality. "It was
over a woman, and not a particularly pretty story, any way you look at
it."

Her dark eyes widened. She bit her lip. It came to her how little of
his life she had shared.

"Oh!" she barely breathed. And again, falteringly: "Oh!"

From that halting monosyllable Joe judged that something was amiss.
Observation had never been a slow or painful process of concentration
with him.

"He didn't even know who she was. He'd never even seen her before,"
quickly he put her right. "She was just a public dancer, that was all.
But a man--mistreated her--and Steve, he just interfered----"

Indeed, Joe had found the way to comfort her and still tell the truth,
even though he found it foolishly difficult to swallow food and watch
at the same time the warmth which his words kindled. So for an hour he
lingered at table and told her many things concerning the man she loved
which she would never have learned from his own lips. And it was Joe's
jocularity which in the end subdued her rebel spirit. She yielded at
last and promised to go home and rest, but only after he had promised
first in a fashion which could leave no doubt in her heart, that he
would come for her if things grew worse.

Before she left him that morning she told Joe of Big Louie, whom she
had had to leave in the road; but he interrupted her before she could
finish. They had already found Big Louie. Then she gave him the note
which she had discovered crushed beneath Steve's body. This Joe
scanned ferociously; he flashed a strange glance at her from bleached
blue eyes.

"Some one traced your name," he put into words the first thought that
had b