es, who lives nearby, to take you home with him.
We can send for you if there is any change. I must insist that you go
now."

"Ain't I made it cl'ar from the start," cried Pop angrily, "thet I ain't
a-goin' to be druv out? You-uns kin call me muley-headed or whatever
you've a mind to. Sal's always stood by me, and by golly, I'm a-goin' to
stand by Sal!"

His raised voice roused the patient, and a feeble summons brought Miss
Fletcher to the bedside.

"Say," plead the girl faintly, "don't rile Pop. He's the--fightenest
man--in--Breathitt--when his blood's--up."

"All right, dear," said Miss Fletcher, with a soothing hand on the hot
brow; "he shall do as he likes."

During that long night the girl passed from one paroxysm of pain to
another with brief intervals of drug-induced sleep. During the quiet
moments the nurse snatched what rest she could; but old Jeb Hawkins
stuck to his post in the straight-backed chair, never nodding, never
relaxing the vigilance of his watch. For Pop was doing sentry duty, much
as he had done it in the old days of the Civil War, when he had answered
Lincoln's first call for volunteers and given his left arm for his
country.

But the enemy to-night was mysterious, crafty, one that might come in
the twinkling of an eye, and a sentry at seventy is not what he was at
twenty-two. When the doctor arrived in the morning he found the old man
haggard with fatigue.

"This won't do, Mr. Hawkins," he said kindly; "you must get some rest."

"Be she goin' to die?" Pop demanded, steadying himself by a chair.

"It is too soon to tell," the doctor said evasively; "but I'll say this
much, her pulse is better than I expected. Now, go get some sleep."

Half an hour later a strange rumbling sound puzzled the nurses in Ward
B. It came at regular intervals, rising from a monotonous growl to a
staccato, then dying away in a plaintive diminuendo. It was not until
one of the nurses needed clean sheets that the mystery was explained. On
the floor of the linen closet, stretched on his back with his carpet
sack under his head and his empty sleeve across his chest, lay Pop!

From that time on the old mountaineer became a daily problem to Ward B.
It is true, he agreed in time to go home at night with the orderly; but
by six in the morning he was sitting on the hospital steps, impatiently
awaiting admission. The linen closet was still regarded by him as his
private apartment, to which he repaired at such times as