"The doctor and Carleton and myself—we were just speaking about it."
"Why ain't I?" demanded Owsley again.
"Why, good Lord, Jake," said Regan patiently, "you've been sick—dashed near two months. A man can't expect to get out of bed after a lay-off like that and start right in again before he gets his strength back. You know that as well as I do."
"Mabbe I do, and mabbe I don't," said Owsley, a little uncertainly. "How'm I going to get strong?"
"Well," replied Regan, "the doc says open-air work to build you up, and we were thinking you might like to put in a month, say, with Bill McCann up on the Elk River work—helping him boss Polacks, for instance."
Owsley didn't speak for a moment, he seemed to be puzzling something out; then, still in a puzzled way:
"And then what about after the month?"
"Why then," said Regan, "then"—he reached for his hip pocket and his plug, pulled out the plug, picked the heart-shaped tin tag off with his thumb nail, decided not to take a bite, and put the blackstrap back in his pocket again. "Why then," said he, "you'll—you ought to be all right again."
Owsley sat up in bed.
"You playing straight with me, Regan?" he asked slowly.