John Hunter stood speechless till the end of the story, and then helped tie the doctor’s team.
“That all comes from that miserable team! I’m glad one of them did have to be shot. I’ve half a notion to shoot the other one; it’s all cut up by the wire and ’ll take no end of trouble to cure. Hugh said horses and dogs talked with their tails, and I guess they do. Say, will you tell Elizabeth about the horse? It’s one I got from her father and she’s terribly fond of it.”
Elizabeth met Doctor Morgan as he came from Hugh’s room a few minutes later with the unspoken question so plainly evident in her face that he answered it without waiting to be asked.
“No signs of further trouble, little woman, thank God! They tell me you were near being run over by that binder too.”
Elizabeth evaded the last remark.
“That’s nothing. But are you sure about Hugh?” she asked in a voice that quavered a little.
“Now look here,” the doctor said, concerned at once for her welfare. “We can’t have you go and get upset. It looks as if Noland got out of that pretty lucky. The only thing that’s worrying me is that infernal heart of his.”
John came in at that point and the old doctor addressed himself to him.
“This woman’ll have to take care of Noland, Hunter, and I want you to see to it that she don’t have another thing to do. She can’t have that child dragging on her, and we’ll have to look out that she don’t overdo, or we’ll have her down on our hands too. The trouble with peritonitis is that it don’t get well as fast as it looks to. A slight thing will often start it up anew, and peritonitis is the devil if it gets to recurring.”
“We’ll all help take care of Hugh,” John promised readily.