s from which ordinary peddlers and insurance men are rigidly
excluded. Like a great many other charities built on a common-sense
self-supporting rational basis, the woods hospitals are under the Roman
Catholic Church.

In one of these hospitals Thorpe lay for six weeks suffering from a
severe concussion of the brain. At the end of the fourth, his fever had
broken, but he was pronounced as yet too weak to be moved.

His nurse was a red-cheeked, blue-eyed, homely little Irish girl,
brimming with motherly good-humor. When Thorpe found strength to talk,
the two became friends. Through her influence he was moved to a bed
about ten feet from the window. Thence his privileges were three roofs
and a glimpse of the distant river.

The roofs were covered with snow. One day Thorpe saw it sink into itself
and gradually run away. The tinkle tinkle tank tank of drops sounded
from his own eaves. Down the far-off river, sluggish reaches of ice
drifted. Then in a night the blue disappeared from the stream. It became
a menacing gray, and even from his distance Thorpe could catch the swirl
of its rising waters. A day or two later dark masses drifted or shot
across the field of his vision, and twice he thought he distinguished
men standing upright and bold on single logs as they rushed down the
current.

"What is the date?" he asked of the Sister.

"The eleventh of March."

"Isn't it early for the thaw?"

"Listen to 'im!" exclaimed the Sister delightedly. "Early is it! Sure
th' freshet co't thim all. Look, darlint, ye kin see th' drive from
here."

"I see," said Thorpe wearily, "when can I get out?"

"Not for wan week," replied the Sister decidedly.

At the end of the week Thorpe said good-by to his attendant, who
appeared as sorry to see him go as though the same partings did not come
to her a dozen times a year; he took two days of tramping the little
town to regain the use of his legs, and boarded the morning train for
Beeson Lake. He did not pause in the village, but bent his steps to the
river trail.

Chapter XIII

Thorpe found the woods very different from when he had first traversed
them. They were full of patches of wet earth and of sunshine; of dark
pine, looking suddenly worn, and of fresh green shoots of needles,
looking deliciously springlike. This was the contrast everywhere--stern,
earnest, purposeful winter, and gay, laughing, careless spring. It was
impossible not to draw in fresh spirits with every st