the station when the cars slowed down at the
forsaken-looking desert town. She looked at his white, haggard face and
heavy eyes, and her heart stood still. "Oh, Tom, he isn't--"

"No, dear, not that. He is better this morning, the doctor says; but he
is pretty badly hurt. I am glad you have come, though we didn't think it
was necessary to send for you."

That was all they said until the weather-beaten cottage was reached.
Then just as Tabitha opened the screen to enter the stifling kitchen,
Tom spoke:

"He is in your room. He insisted upon being put there with the bed drawn
up by the window. They probably won't let you see him yet, but there is
a heap of things to be done that I haven't the slightest notion about,
Puss. I can sweep and dust and make beds, and even cook potatoes and
boil coffee, but how in creation do you make broths that a sick man will
eat? And where can a fellow get cool water this kind of weather with no
ice in town? The ice-plant burned last week."

Tabitha's anxiety lifted for the moment, and laying aside her dainty
traveling dress, she donned a big apron and fell to work setting the
little house to rights. Those were hard days that followed, and more
than once the burden seemed almost too great for the slender shoulders.
Two miners were hurt at the Silver Legion, and the nurse was called away
to care for them at the hospital. The hot winds descended suddenly upon
the desert and Silver Bow writhed under the fierce glare of the blazing
sun. All who could get away left the stifling town for the cool breath
of the seashore, and no help could be found for the girl working so
bravely in the lonely little cottage, taking the place of nurse and
housekeeper and facing a situation before which many a stouter heart
would have quailed. Tom did his best, but the sick man became possessed
of a whim that no one should wait upon him but poor, tired Tabitha, and
day and night found her ministering to him in the sweltering heat that
seemed fairly to cook town and people.

Dr. Vane's face grew very grave as he watched the struggle, and one day
he said to Tom as he was leaving on his other calls, "Is it possible for
your aunt to come out here again?"

"I am afraid not, sir," was the discouraged answer. "She is just
recovering from a severe siege of fever herself."

The doctor shook his head. "I ought to have sent your father to Los
Angeles the minute I was called to attend him; but he was so set against
it t