error spread itself and grew stronger. In fact,
Black Creek scarcely comported itself as stoically as might have been
expected. A messenger was dispatched to the nearest town for a doctor,
and his arrival by the night train was awaited with excited impatience.

When he came, however, the matter became worse. He had bad news to tell
himself. The epidemic had broken out in the town he had left, and great
fears were entertained by its inhabitants. "If you had not been so
entirely thrown on your own resources," he said, "I could not have
come."

A heavy enough responsibility rested upon his shoulders during the
next few weeks. He had little help from the settlement. Those who were
un-stricken looked on at the progress of the disease with helpless fear:
few indeed escaped a slight attack, and those who did were scarcely more
useful than his patients. In the whole place he found only two reliable
and unterrified assistants.

His first visit was to a small farm-house round the foot of the mountain
and a short distance from the mine. There he found the family huddled in
a back room like a flock of frightened sheep, and in the only chamber a
handsome, bright-haired young fellow lying, upon the bed with a pinched
and ominous look upon his comely face. The only person with him was
a lad roughly clad in miner's clothes--a lad who stood by chafing his
hands, and who turned desperate eyes to the door when it opened. "Yo're
too late, mester," he said--"yo're too late."

But young as he was--and he was a very young man--the doctor had
presence of mind and energy, and he flung his whole soul and strength
into the case. The beauty and solitariness of his patient roused his
sympathy almost as if it had been the beauty of a woman; he felt drawn
toward the stalwart, helpless young figure lying upon the humble couch
in such apparent utter loneliness. He did not count much upon the lad
at first--he seemed too much bewildered and shaken--but it was not long
before he changed his mind. "You are getting over your fear," he said.

"It wasna fear, mester," was the answer he received; "or at least it
wasna fear for mysen'."

"What is your name?"

"Seth Ray nor, mester. Him an' me," with a gesture toward the bed, "comn
from th' same place. Th' cholera couldna fear me fro' _him_--nor nowt
else if he wur i' need."

So it was Seth Raynor who watched by the bedside, and labored with
loving care and a patience which knew no weariness, until the