ing with
agony upon his wet face. Her father bent over him and worked on a puffy,
pink, naked arm and shoulder, and body. The man was half conscious; his
face was twitching, and when she looked again she saw where his right
hand should be only a brown, charred stump.

Not looking up the Doctor spoke: "You know where things are and what I
need--I can't get him clear under," Every motion he made counted; he
took no false steps; he made no turn of his body or twist of his hand
that was not full of conscious purpose. He only spoke to give orders,
and when Brotherton whispered to Laura:

"White hot lead pig at the smelter--Grant saw it was going to kill Hogan
and grabbed it."

The Doctor shook his head at Brotherton and for two hours that was all
Laura knew of the accident. Once when the Doctor stopped for a second to
take a deep breath, Brotherton asked, "Do you want another doctor?" the
little man shook his head again, and motioned with it at his daughter.

"She's doing well enough." She kept her father's merciless pace, but
always the sense of her stricken life seemed to be hovering in the back
of her consciousness, and the hours seemed ages as she applied her
bandages, and helped with the gruesome work of the knife on the charred
stump of the arm. But finally it was over and she saw Brotherton and
Hogan lift Grant to a cot, under her father's direction, and carry him
to the bedroom she had used as a girl at home. While the Doctor and
Laura had been working in his office Mrs. Nesbit had been making the
bedroom ready.

It was five o'clock, and the two fagged women were in Mrs. Nesbit's
room. The younger woman was pale and haggard and unable to relax. The
mother tried all of a mother's wiles to bring peace to the over-strung
nerves. But the daughter paced the floor silently, or if she spoke it
was to ask some trivial question about the household--about what
arrangements were made for the injured man's food, about Lila, about
Amos Adams and Kenyon. Finally, as she turned to leave the room, her
mother asked, "Where are you going?" The daughter answered, "Why, I'm
going home."

"But Laura," the mother returned, "I believe your father is expecting
your help here--to-night. I am sure he will need you." The daughter
looked steadily, but rather vacantly at her mother for a moment, then
replied: "Well, Lila and I must go now. I'll leave her there with the
maid and I'll try to come back."

Her hand was on the door-knob. "We