“He is up there doing his best with her,” she said.
The doctor threw out his hands in a gesture of disdain, and the nurse laughed again; but her cheeks were pink and her eyes flashing as she returned to duty.
“Random shot, but it might hit something, you never can tell,” commented the doctor.
The Harvester entered the Girl's room and stood still. She was fretting and raising her temperature rapidly. Before he reached the door his heart gave one great leap at the sound of her voice calling his name. He knew what to do, but he hesitated.
“She seems to have become accustomed to you, and at times does not remember me,” said Doctor Harmon. “I think you had better take her again until she grows quiet.”
The Harvester stepped to the bed and looked the doctor in the eye.
“I am afraid I left out one important feature in our little talk on the bridge,” he said. “I neglected to tell you that in your fight for this woman's life and love you have a rival. I am he. She is my wife, and with the last fibre of my being I adore her. If you win, and she wants you to take her away, I will help you; but my heart goes with her forever. If by any chance it should occur that I have been mistaken or misinterpreted her delirium or that she has been deceived and finds she prefers me and Medicine Woods, to you and Chicago, when she has had opportunity to measure us man against man, you must understand that I claim her. So I say to you frankly, take her if you can, but don't imagine that I am passive. I'll help you if I know she wants you, but I fight you every inch of the way. Only it has got to be square and open. Do you understand?”
“You are certainly sufficiently clear.”
“No man who is half a man sees the last chance of happiness go out of his life without putting up the stiffest battle he knows,” said the Harvester grimly. “Ruth-girl, you are raising the fever again. You must be quiet.”
With infinite tenderness he possessed himself of her hands and began stroking her hair, and in a low and soothing voice the story of the birds, flowers, lake, and woods went on. To keep it from growing monotonous the Harvester branched out and put in everything he knew. In the days that followed he held a position none could take from him. While the doctors fought the fever, he worked for rest and quiet, and soothed the tortured body as best he could, that the medicines might act.