ch billets in the
rusty stove. She was anxious, but not unduly so, for she knew that men
who live as the prairie farmers do, usually recover from such injuries
as had befallen him more or less readily. It would also not be very
long before assistance arrived, for it was understood that the man she
had sent Sproatly for had almost gone through a medical course in an
Eastern city before he set up as a prairie farmer. Why he had suddenly
changed his profession was a point he did not explain, and, as he had
always shown himself willing to do what he could when any of his
neighbours met with an accident, nobody troubled him about the matter.

By and bye Sproatly brought him to the homestead, and he was busy with
Hawtrey for some time. Then they got him to bed, and Watson came back
to the room where Sally was anxiously waiting.

"His 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!" said the other. "It would be criminal to leave you in charge of
a sick man."

Sally quietly put on her blanket coat. "If you can stay that long,
I'll be back soon after it's light," she said. Then 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 smart to-morrow you'll do
it again."

[Illustration: "Then she turned to Sproatly. 'You can wash up those
dishes on the table.'"]

Then, while Sproatly grinned, she went out and drove away through the
bitter frost.

CHAPTER III.

WYLLARD ASSENTS.

Sally, who brought her mother with her, spent a couple of weeks at
Hawtrey's homestead before Watson decided that his patient could be
entrusted to Sproatly's care; but she came back afterwards twice a week
or so with odd baskets of dainties to make sure that the latter, in
whom she had no confidence, was discharging his duties satisfactorily.
She had driven over again one afternoon, when Hawtrey, whose bones were
knitting well, lay talking to another man in his little sleeping room.

There was no furniture in it whatever, beyond the wooden bunk he lay
in, and a deerhide lounge chair he had made during the winter; but the
stovepipe from the kitchen led across part of it, and then up again
i