ge, the bone was knitting
together and would be straight and strong again, if he did not try to
hurry it too much. He tried to keep count of the weeks as they passed.
When the days slid behind him until he feared he could not remember, he
cut a little notch on the window-sill each morning with Buck's knife,
with every seventh day a longer and deeper notch than the others to
mark the weeks. The first three days had been so hazy that he thought
them only two and marked them so; but that put him only one day out of
his reckoning.

He lay there and saw snow slither past his window, driven by a whooping
wind. It worried him to know that his calves were unsheltered and
unfed while his long stack of hay stood untouched--unless the cattle
broke down his fence and reached it. He hoped they would; but he was a
thorough workman, and in his heart he knew that fence would stand.

He saw cold rains and sleet. Then there were days when he shivered
under his blankets and would have given much for a cup of hot coffee;
days when the water froze in the pails beside the bed--what little
water was left--and he chipped off pieces of ice and sucked them to
quench his thirst. Days when the tomatoes and peaches were frozen in
the cans, so that he chewed jerked venison and ate crackers rather than
chill his stomach with the icy stuff.

Day by day the little notches and the longer ones reached farther and
farther along the window-sill, until Ward began to foresee the time
when he must start a new row. Day by day his cheek-bones grew more
clearly defined, his eyes bigger and more wistful. Day by day his
knuckles stood up sharper when he closed his hands, and day by day
Nature worked upon his hurt, knitting the bones together.

But, though he was lean to the point of being skinny, his eyes were
clear, and what little flesh he had was healthy flesh. Though he was
lonesome and hungry for action and for sight of Billy Louise, his mind
had not grown morbid. He learned more of the Bobbie Burns verses, and
he could repeat _The Rhyme of the Three Sealers_ in his sleep, and most
of _The Lady of the Lake_. He used to lie and sing at the top of his
voice, sometimes: _The Chisholm Trail_--unexpurgated--and _Sam Bass_
and that doleful ditty about the _Lone Prairie_, and quaint old
Scottish songs he had heard his mother sing, long and long ago. His
leg would heal of itself if he let it alone long enough, he reminded
himself often. His mind he m