SERVICE RENDERED
The news that Monck was down with the fever brought both the Colonel and Major Ralston early to the bungalow on the following morning.
They found Stella and the ever-faithful Peter in charge of both patients. Tommy was better though weak. Monck was in a high fever and delirious.
Stella was in the latter's room, for he would not suffer her out of his sight. She alone seemed to have any power to control him, and Ralston noted the fact with astonishment.
"There's some magic about you," he observed in his blunt fashion. "Are you going to take on this job? It's no light one but you'll probably do it better than any one else."
It was a tacit invitation, and Stella knowing how widespread was the sickness that infected the station, accepted it without demur.
"It rather looks as if it were my job, doesn't it?" she said. "I am willing, anyway to do my best."
Ralston looked at her with a gleam of approval, but the Colonel drew her aside to remonstrate.
"It's not fit for you. You'll be ill yourself. If Ralston weren't nearly at his wit's end he'd never dream of allowing it."
But Stella heard the protest with a smile. "Believe me, I am only too glad to be able to do something useful for a change," she assured him. "As to being ill myself, I will promise not to behave so badly as that."