ill me, Rita, so why worry?

"I shall be back at work in the store to-morrow, same as before. Cheer
up, little girl!"

"But nobody at the Camp can understand it," she went on with more
composure. "They all knew there had been a fight. They were sure you
had been killed, for nobody ever stands up against Joe without coming
down harder than he does, and they say Joe was pretty nearly done for."

"How is he now?" I inquired, inquisitive to know if he were suffering
at least some of what I had suffered.

"Mr. Auld just came in as I left. Joe's been unconscious for two days."

"Good!" I exclaimed, almost in delight.

Rita's face expressed a chiding her tongue refused to give.

"He only came to, when the minister got there this afternoon. Joe's
arm is broken. Two of his ribs are stove in. He's bruised and
battered all over. Mr. Auld says the hole in his forehead is the
serious one. Thinks you must have uprooted a tree and hit him with it."

I laughed. But Rita was still all seriousness.

"He'll pull through all right. Minister says he'll be out in two or
three weeks. Says it's a miracle how Joe ever got back to Camp. Must
have crawled to the launch, looked after the engine and steered all the
way himself, and him smashed up as he was. Funny he didn't come over
home. Guess he didn't want any of us to know about it.

"They found his boat run up on the beach at Camp and him lying in the
bottom of it, unconscious; engine of his boat still going full speed.

"Joe was delirious and muttering all the time:

"'I killed that son-of-a-gun, Bremner. I killed Bremner.'

"You know, George,--most of the men like Joe; for he's good to them
when they're down and out. But none of them has much sympathy for him
this time. Mr. Auld says they have heard him talk about doing you up
ever since you came to Golden Crescent. And now, Joe's the man that's
done up.

"Better for him if he had let you be.

"But, maybe after all, it is the best thing that ever happened,--for
Joe, I mean. It will let him see that brute force isn't everything;
that there never was a strong man but there was a stronger one still.
Eh! George."

Rita's mood changed.

"But, if you and Joe quarrel again, I'm going to run away. So there.

"I'm not beholden to any one now,--thanks to dear old Jake Meaghan. I
can get money,--all I want. Then maybe Joe'll be sorry.

"You won't fight any more, George? Say you won't!"

She put her arm ro