ped
the carriage at the bridge she said: "No, you don't! I'm going across. I'm
going to see Ross, and if he needs help, I'm going to roll up my sleeves
and take hold."

Cavanagh saw her advancing, and, as she came near enough for his voice to
reach her, he called out: "Don't come any closer! Stop, I tell you!" His
voice was stern. "You must not come a step nearer. Go back across the
dead-line and stay there. No one but the doctor shall enter this door. Now
that's final."

"I want to help!" she protested.

"I know you do; but I won't have it. This quarantine is real, and it
goes!"

"But suppose you yourself get sick?"

"We'll cross _that_ bridge when we get to it. I'm all right so far, and
I'll call for help when I need it."

His tone was imperative, and she obeyed, grumbling about his youth and the
value of his life to the service.

"That's all very nice," he replied; "but I'm in it, and I don't intend to
expose you or any one else to the contagion."

"I've had it once," she asserted.

He looked at her, and smiled in recognition of her subterfuge.

"No matter; you're ailing, and might take it again, so toddle back. It's
mighty good of you, and of Lee, to come--but there isn't a thing you can
do, and here's the doctor," he added, as he recognized the young student
who passed for a physician in the Fork. He was a beardless youth of small
experience and no great courage, and as he approached with hesitant feet
he asked:

"Are you sure it's smallpox?"

Cavanagh smiled. "The indications are all that way. That last importation
of Basques brought it probably from the steerage of the ship. I'm told
they've had several cases over in the Basin."

"Have you been vaccinated?"

"Yes; when I was in the army."

"Then you're all right."

"I hope so."

There was a certain comic relief in this long-distance diagnosing of a
"case" by a boy, and yet the tragic fact beneath it all was that
Wetherford was dying, a broken and dishonored husband and father, and that
his identity must be concealed from his wife and daughter, who were much
more deeply concerned over the ranger than over the desperate condition of
his patient. "And this must continue to be so," Cavanagh decided. And as
he stood there looking toward the girl's fair figure on the bridge, he
came to the final, fixed determination never to speak one word or make a
sign that might lead to the dying man's identification. "Of what use is
it?" he asked himself. "W