Ogilvie threw up both his hands, hopelessly. "Where he always is—back in the woods at one of the stills, dead drunk, like as not."
"More'n likely," Father Cary acquiesced. Then, nodding towards the bed, he asked, "What's the matter with her?"
"Nothing now. She would have been dead, though, if I had operated half an hour later. Lord knows how long she's been lying there. The baby's nearly dead, too—half-starved and half-poisoned by his mother's illness."
"How'd you happen to come?" the old man asked.
"The oldest boy came for me—all the way over to the Summit, and he's not six. He's at my house in bed now."
Then Father Cary crossed the room, and stood beside Rosamund, looking down at her. She met his look with a quiet smile.
"New work for you, ain't it?" he asked. "Ma Cary'll be real proud o' ye!"
And answering the question in her eyes, he went on, "Oh, she'll be home again in time to get dinner. Wasn't nothin' the matter with the baby; but Nancy's that nervous, an' so's Ma Cary." He chuckled. "I reckon it takes some experience and a right smart o' ca'm to be a real successful granny."
The doctor was becoming impatient. "Will you stay here with Miss Randall, Cary? I must get someone to come; she"—nodding towards the bed—"will need watching until we can find Allen."
So for an hour or so Pa Cary sat opposite Rosamund or busied himself preparing for breakfast the little food to be found in the house. The other children awoke, tumbling down backwards from the high box-bed, looking across at their mother with scared faces, and distrustfully at Rosamund.