Pros had been boys
together, and she knew her uncle one to deserve affection, though he
seldom commanded it.

There was a sound of wheels outside, and Gray Stoddard's voice with that
of the doctor's. Shade and Pap Himes still hovered nervously about the
window, staring in and hearkening to all that was said, Mavity Bence had
wept till her face was sodden. She herded the other girls back out of
the way, but watched everything with terrified eyes.

"He'll jest about come to hisself befo' he dies," the older conspirator
muttered to Shade as the stretcher passed them, and the skilled,
white-jacketed attendants laid Pros Passmore in the vehicle without so
much as disturbing his breathing. "He'll jest about come to hisself
thar, and them pesky doctors 'll have word about the silver mine. Well,
in this world, them that has, gits, mostly. Ef Johnnie Consadine had
been any manner o' kin to me, I vow I'd 'a' taken a hickory to her when
she set up her word agin' mine and let him go out of the house. The
little fool! she didn't know what she was sendin' away."

And so Pros Passmore was taken to the hospital. His bandanna full of ore
remained buried at the bottom of Gideon Himes's trunk, to be fished up
often by the old sinner, fingered and fondled, and laid back in hiding;
while the man who had carried it down the mountains to fling it in
Johnnie's lap lay with locked lips, and told neither the doctors nor
Himes where the silver mine was. August sweated itself away; September
wore on into October in a procession of sun-robed, dust-sandalled days,
and still Uncle Pros gave no sign of actual recovery.

Johnnie was working hard in the mill. Hartley Sessions had become, in
his cold, lifeless fashion, very much her friend. Inert, slow, he had
one qualification for his position: he could choose an assistant, or
delegate authority with good judgment; and he found in Johnnie Consadine
an adjutant so reliable, so apt, and of such ability, that he
continually pushed more work upon her, if pay and honours did not always
follow in adequate measure.

For a time, much as she disliked to approach Shade with any request,
Johnnie continued to urge him whenever they met to finish up the
indicators and let her have them back again. Then Hartley Sessions
promoted her to a better position in the weaving department, and other
cares drove the matter from her mind.

The condition of Uncle Pros added fearfully to the drains upon her time
and thought