"You've treated this poor fellow all right, Hiram, as far as you've gone. After breakfast I'll come back with some medicine I've got to reduce his fever. You'll have enough to do around here daytimes tending to your work. I'll do the nursing for the poor fellow during the day if you'll look after him at night."
"My goodness!" said Hiram, with fervor, "I'll do all I can. It is a relief to know it isn't smallpox."
"You musn't neglect your work," Miss Pringle said, as they both came out of the house again. "You've got some men coming, haven't you?"
"In a day or two."
"That Ad Banks was around yesterday, wasn't he? I guess he's after a job with you, after all, even if you are a mite young for a boss," and she chuckled.
"I did not see him."
"That so? I saw him hanging about the barn and smoking that old pipe of his."
"He can't get into the barn very easily. The doors are all locked," said Hiram. Then, suddenly remembering the pipe he had found, he drew it from his pocket. "Could this be Adam Banks' pipe?" he asked.
"Guess it could—and it is," said Miss Pringle promptly, sniffing at the odorous pipe. "I'd know that old thing anywhere. It's Ad Banks'. Where'd you find it?"
"Where it had no business to be. Inside one of the sheds. Funny it should have been down there, too. I thought it belonged to this Orrin Post. I wonder what that Banks fellow was doing down there?"