“I’m a friend—my name is Cavanagh.”
“I can’t place you,” he sadly admitted. “I feel pretty bad. If I ever get out of this place I’m going back to the Fork; I’ll get a gold-mine, then I’ll go back and make up for what Lize has gone through. I’m afraid to go back now.”
“All right,” Ross soothingly agreed; “but you’ll have to keep quiet till you get over this fever you’re suffering from.”
“If Lize weren’t so far away, she’d come and nurse me—I’m pretty sick. This stone-cutting—this inside work is hell on an old cow-puncher like me.”
Swenson came back to say that probably Redfield and the doctor would reach The Station by noon, and thereafter, for the reason that Cavanagh expected their coming, the hours dragged wofully. It was after one o’clock before Swenson announced that two teams were coming with three men and two women in them. “They’ll be here in half an hour.”
The ranger’s heart leaped. Two women! Could one of them be Lee Virginia? What folly—what sweet, desperate folly! And the other—she could not be Lize—for Lize was too feeble to ride so far. “Stop them on the other side of the bridge,” he commanded. “Don’t let them cross the creek on any pretext.”
As he stood in the door the flutter of a handkerchief, the waving of a hand, made his pulses glow and his eyes grow dim. It was Virginia!
Lize did not flutter a kerchief or wave a hand, but when Swenson stopped the carriage at the bridge she said: “No, you don’t! I’m going across. I’m going to see Ross, and if he needs help, I’m going to roll up my sleeves and take hold.”
Cavanagh saw her advancing, and, as she came near enough for his voice to reach her, he called out: “Don’t come any closer! Stop, I tell you!” His voice was stern. “You must not come a step nearer. Go back across the dead-line and stay there. No one but the doctor shall enter this door. Now that’s final.”
“I want to help!” she protested.