im.

"Uncle Jep! Uncle Jep! For God's sake get up quick and help me. Creed
Bonbright's come home to his house, and I think he's dead or dyin' over
there."

Chapter XXIV

A Case of Walking Typhoid

"Uh--_huh_!" said the old man as he straightened up after a long
examination of Creed. "I thort so. He's got a case o' walkin' typhoid,
an' looks like he's been on his feet with it till hit's plumb wore him
out."

He stood staring down at the prostrate figure, which had neither sound
nor movement, the fluttering breath of which seemed scarcely to stir the
chest.

"Walkin' typhoid," he repeated. "I've met up with some several in my
lifetime. Cur'ous things. His wound looks to be healed. Reckon he's been
puny along ever sence he got that ball in his shoulder, and hit's ended
up in this here spell of fever."

"Will he die, Uncle Jep?" whispered Judith, crouching beside him, her
dark eyes roving desperately from the still form to her uncle's
countenance. "What must we do for him?"

"N-no--I reckon he has a chance," hesitated Jephthah. Then, glancing at
her white, miserable face, "an' ef he has, hit's to git him away from
here an' into bed right. Lord, I wish 't the boys had been home to he'p
us out. Well, we'll have to do the best we can."

As he spoke he put the word into action, getting a length of home-made
carpet to put in the bottom of the waggon before he should lay in the
feather-bed upon which Creed was to rest. As he worked, despite the look
of acute anxiety, the old man's eye was brighter, his step was freer, his
head was borne more erect, than Judith had seen it since the trouble
came.

Silent, efficient, careful, experienced, he managed with her help to lift
the unconscious man into the waggon and place him, his head in Judith's
lap, for the journey home.

"You mind now, Judy," he admonished, almost sternly, "ef he comes to
hisse'f you speak to him mighty quiet and pleasant-like. Don't you set to
cryin'--don't you make no fuss. 'Tain't every gal I'd trust thisaway.
Nothin' worse for a sick man than to get him excited." He took the lines
and drove with infinite care and caution, walking beside the horse.

But his warning was unnecessary; Creed never roused from the lethargy in
which his senses were locked. They got him safely home, the old man
undressed him and laid him comfortably in that big show-bed in the front
room that was given to any guest of honour.

Morning was breaking when Judith, c