heir once almost hopeless search, and for long they discussed the
story that was at once so strange, so moving, and yet so simple.

"Man proposes, God disposes," quoted "Forty-niner," with all the
emphasis of an original philosophy. "If we'd set out to make up a fairy
story we couldn't have beat this. But I'm so glad, it seems like I
could get right up and dance a jig, smashed leg and all."

"Glad! Ephraim, I'm so glad, too, and the gladness is so deep, deep
down that I don't want to dance. I just want to cry. And that poor man
is little Luis' father. Oh! it is pitiful."

"Hush, captain. Don't you go to grieving over that scamp. A man don't
get good nor bad all in a minute. It was hard enough, I 'low, for a
fellow to be snatched out of the world that sudden. Yet, if he could
speak for himself, he'd say a thousand times better that than what the
law would have given him. Let him be. His part is done. He's passed in
his checks and don't you hear that Heaven won't pay out on all the good
ones. Now--what next?"

Both knew, yet both disliked to mention that which each felt. Till
Ephraim swallowed something like a sob and remarked:

"The longer I lie here, like a log, the madder I get at myself and the
weaker minded. I'm just about as ready to cry as a whipped baby. I know
'twas the best thing could have happened, my getting hurt, though why a
plain, everyday break wouldn't have answered the purpose just as well
as this 'compound fracture,' the doctors make such a fuss over and
takes so long to heal, I don't see. Nor never shall. If it had been
just ordinary bone-crackin' I'd been lively as a hop-toad by now, and
ready to start right home with you this minute. As it is----"

"Oh, Ephraim! I hate to leave you--but I must get quickly to my mother!
Don't you see I must? To smooth all those sad lines out of her dear
face and make her happy again, as this news surely will. They'll be
good to you here, and you can come the first minute they'll let you."

"Why not telegraph her? The boys go every day to Marion for the letters
you and all send, and the postmaster is the operator, too. Why not that,
and wait just a day or two. Likely I'll be cavortin' round, supple as a
lizard on a fence, by then."

Jessica did not answer and Ephraim asked:

"How could you go, anyway, without me or some protector? Though I made
a bad job of it once I wouldn't the second time."

"I don't know how, dear old fellow, and I do know how bitter
di