t
would have a rotten influence upon the entire community."

Olive, who had dropped in ostensibly for purposes of gossip, nodded in
comprehension. Indeed, she was in a position to comprehend the
situation a long way more perfectly than even Reed, its victim and by
no means of doubtful understanding, could ever do. She heard him talked
about in a fashion that she found revolting. Her old-time comrade was
as much a man as ever, despite his injuries, as sane in all his
outlook, as whimsical and impersonal in his fun. She therefore resented
the universal attitude of regarding him as a crushed archangel, a
candidate for repeated and unlimited doses of mental gruel. If ever a
man needed solid social nutriment, it was this energetic young engineer
who was temporarily dragged off from the scene of action and reduced to
the need of killing time within the limits of four walls. Indeed, it
would take a good deal of social nutriment and social spice as well, to
bring four walls and the exciting alternations of a canopy-top bed and
a chintz couch up to the level of interest gained out of a succession
of different mining camps and the different problems they presented,
above ground and below. To Reed Opdyke, used to tramping over mountain
trails, accustomed to riding anything from a half-broken cayuse to a
wabbly platform at a rope's end, the day's journey nowadays limited
itself to being lifted out of bed in the arms of his lusty nurse, being
placed with all discretion in the exact middle of a couch and in being
trundled slowly across the floor to the bay window. Later in the day,
the process repeated itself in the reverse direction, but with even
greater care because of the fatiguing experiences of the day. Therefore
it was that Reed Opdyke preferred his visitors to have the flavour of
tabasco, rather than whipped cream.

Olive dropped in upon him, every day, and she always found a welcome.
She had known Reed long enough not to be likely to collide with any of
his prejudices. She had rollicked with him in his active days often
enough to save him from feeling any ignominy in having her behold him
in his passive ones. She was never sentimental; never, since their
first inevitable bad half-hour together after his return, had she torn
her hair, metaphorically speaking, above the spectacle of his
afflictions. She merely handed him the things he couldn't reach; and
gossiped ceaselessly about the things that were happening among their
c