came back to
the room where Sally was anxiously waiting.

"Hawtrey's idea about his injuries is more or less correct, but we'll
have no great trouble in pulling him round," he said. "The one point
that's worrying me is the looking after him. One couldn't expect him to
thrive upon slabs of burnt salt pork, and Sproatly's bread."

"I'll do what I can," said Sproatly indignantly.

"You!" replied Watson. "It would be criminal to leave you in charge of a
sick man."

Sally quietly put on her blanket coat. "If you can stay a few hours,
I'll be back soon after it's light," she said. She turned to Sproatly.
"You can wash up those dishes on the table, and get a brush and sweep
this room out. If it's not quite neat to-morrow you'll do it again."

Sproatly grinned as she went out. A few moments later the girl drove
away through the bitter frost.

CHAPTER III

WYLLARD ASSENTS

Sally, who returned with her mother, passed a fortnight at Hawtrey's
homestead before Watson decided that his patient could be entrusted to
Sproatly's care. Afterwards she went back twice a week to make sure that
Sproatly, in whom she had no confidence, was discharging his duties
satisfactorily. With baskets of dainties for the invalid she had driven
over one afternoon, when Hawtrey, whose bones were knitting well, lay
talking to another man in his little sleeping-room.

There was no furniture in the room except the wooden bunk in which he
lay, and a deerhide lounge chair he had made. The stove-pipe from the
kitchen led across part of one corner, and then up again into the room
beneath the roof above. It had been one of Sproatly's duties since the
accident to rise and renew the fire soon after midnight, and when Sally
arrived he was outside the house, whip-sawing birch-logs and splitting
them, an occupation he profoundly disliked.

Spring had come suddenly, as it usually does on the prairie, and the
snow was melting fast under a brilliant sun. The bright rays that
streamed in through the window struck athwart the glimmering dust motes
in the little bare room, and fell, pleasantly warm, upon the man who sat
in the deerhide chair. He was a year or two older than Hawtrey, though
he had scarcely reached thirty. He was a man of average height, and
somewhat spare of figure. His manner was tranquil and his lean, bronzed
face attractive. He held a pipe in his hand, and was looking at Hawtrey
with quiet, contemplative eyes, that were his most notice