the doctor, after he and Mary had
tiptoed out of the room; "a little of the spirit in keeping with a
dark-eyed girl who lives in the land of the Eternal Painter."

"All I had!" answered Mary, with simple earnestness.

At noon Jack was still sleeping. He slept on through the last hours
of the day.

"The first long stretch he has had," ran the bulletin, from tongue to
tongue, "and real sleep, too--the kind that counts!"

In the late afternoon, when the coolness and the shadows of evening were
creeping in at the doors and windows, the doctor, Peter Mortimer, the
father, and Firio were on the veranda, while Mrs. Galway was on watch by
the bedside.

"He's waking!" she came out to whisper.

The doctor hastened past her into the sick-room. As he entered, Jack
looked up with a bright, puzzled light in his eyes.

"Just what does this mean?" he asked. "Just how does it happen that I am
here? I thought that I--"

"We brought you in some days ago," the doctor explained. "And since you
took the water-hole your mind has been enjoying a little vacation, while
we moved your body about as we pleased."

"I took the water-hole, then! And Firio? Firio? He--"

"He is just waiting outside to congratulate you on the re-establishment
of the old cordial relations between mind and body," the doctor returned;
and slipped out to call Firio and to announce: "He is right as rain,
right as rain!" news that Mrs. Galway set forth immediately to herald
through the community.

As for Firio, he strode into Jack's presence with the air of conqueror,
sage, and prophet in one.

"Is it really you, Firio? Come here, so that I can feel of you and make
sure, you son of the sun!"

Jack put out his thin, white hand to Firio, and the velvet of Firio's
eyes was very soft, indeed.

"Did you know when they brought you in?" Jack asked.

"When burro stumble I feel ouch and see desert and then I drift away
up to sky again," answered Firio. "All right now, eh? Pretty soon
you so strong I have to broil five--six--seven quail a day and still
you hungry!"

The doctor who had been looking on from the doorway felt a vigorous touch
on the arm and turned to hear John Wingfield, Sr. asking him to make
way. With a grimace approaching a scowl he drew back free of Jack's sight
and held up his hand in protest. "You had better not excite him!" he
whispered.

"But I am his father!" said John Wingfield, Sr. with something of his
old, masterful manner in a moment