t have seen something
that might give us a clew." Perhaps the stock inspector was wiser than
she gave him credit for being. He did not at any rate pursue the
subject any farther, until he found an opportunity to talk to Mrs.
MacDonald herself. Then he artfully mentioned the fellow on Mill
Creek, and because she did not know any reason for caution, he got all
the information he wanted, and more, for mommie was in one of her
garrulous humors.

He went away in a thoughtful mood, and I may as well tell you why. Do
you remember that evening when Ward sat before the fire thinking so
intently of a man that he pulled a gun on Billy Louise when she
startled him? Well, this stock inspector was the man. And this man
went away from the Wolverine thinking of Ward quite as intently as Ward
sometimes thought of him. If Billy Louise had thrown a chip and hit
the stock inspector on the back of the neck, it is very likely that he
would have pulled a gun, also. I've an idea that Billy Louise might
have done something more than throw a chip at him if she had known who
he was; but she did not know, and she slept the sounder for her
ignorance.

After that the days drifted quietly for a month and grew nippier at
each end and lazier in the middle; which meant that the short summer
was over, and that fall was getting ready to paint the wooded slopes
with her gayest colors, and that one must prepare for the siege of
winter.

It was some time in the latter part of September that Billy Louise got
up in the middle of a frosty night because she heard her mother
moaning. That was the beginning. She sent John off before daylight
for the doctor, and before the next night she stood with her lips
pressed together and watched the doctor count mommie's pulse and take
mommie's temperature, and drew in her breath hardly when she saw how
long he studied the thermometer afterwards.

There was a month or so of going to and fro on her toes and of watching
the clock with a mind to medicine-giving. There were nights and nights
and nights when the cabin window winked like a star fallen into the
coulee, from dusk to red dawn. Ward rode over once, stayed all night,
and went home in a silent rage because he could not do a thing.

There was a week of fluctuating hope, and a time when the doctor said
mommie must go to a hospital--Boise, since she had friends there. And
there was a terrible, nerve-racking journey to the railroad. And when
Ward rode n