"You don't seem to realize that he is terribly wounded!"
"By no means 'terribly.' The school-teacher—who seems to be a capable person as well as a 'dear'—has made a very good job of removing the bullet, and there's no temperature. Believe me, your imaginative friend will manage to survive this affair. Everything is settled. Brother Bates will stay and see the school-teacher, and arrange with him about the mule-litter for Channing. He will go down with you himself, and see you safely into the train. Sorry I can't, but I'm expected on the other side of the mountain this morning for a 'buryin,' and as the deceased has been awaiting the occasion for several months—underground, I trust,—I don't like to postpone it any longer."
"Won't you even wait till we start?" she asked forlornly.
"I can't. Sorry not to see that school-teacher, too. He has gone off somewhere on an errand, the old woman in charge here says. Doesn't know when he will be back. I must be off."
"Aren't you going to say good-by to Mr. Channing?"
"I have already said good-by, and other things, to Mr. Channing," said Philip, grimly. "Au revoir, little girl."
He rode up the trail at a lope, passing as he went a group of laurel bushes, behind which, had he looked more closely, he might have detected the crouching figure of a man, who watched him wistfully out of sight. The teacher's errand had not taken him far.
When Philip stopped at the schoolhouse again that evening on his return from the "buryin'," he found it deserted. There was a sign on the door. "School closed for a week. Gone fishing."
"A casual sort of school-teacher, this," said Philip, disappointed. "A regular gadabout! I'm afraid I shan't see him at all. What did you say his name was?"
The man Anse, who was his companion, eyed Philip impassively. "Dunno as I said. Dunno as I ever heerd tell. We calls him 'Teacher' hereabouts."