But when Glover pulled together his disordered members and at Gertrude's side walked without help to the step of the car, the murmur broke into a cheer that rang from Pilot to Glen Tarn.
"It was more than half my fault," he breathed to her, after his broken arms had been set and the long gash on his head stitched. "I need not have lost my balance if I had kept my head. Gertrude, I may as well admit it—I'm a coward since I've begun to love you. I've never told you how I saw your face once between the curtains of an empty sleeper. But it came back to me just as Dancing's shoulder slipped—that's why I went. I'm done forever with long chances." And she, silent, tried only to quiet him while the car moved down the gap bearing them from Pilot together.
"Do you know what day to-morrow is?" Gertrude was opening a box of flowers that Solomon had brought from the express-office; Glover, plastered with bandages, was standing before the grate fire in the hotel parlor.
"To-morrow?" he echoed. "Sunday."
"Sunday! Why do you always guess Sunday when I ask you what day it is?"
"You would think every day Sunday if you had had as good a time as I have for six weeks."
"The doctor does say you're doing beautifully. I asked him yesterday how soon you would be well and he said you never had been so well since he knew you. But what is to-morrow?"
"Thanksgiving."
"Thanksgiving, indeed! Yes, every day is Thanksgiving for us. But it's not especially that."
"Christmas."