“I’ll do what I can,” said Sproatly indignantly.
“You!” replied Watson. “It would be criminal to leave you in charge of a sick man.”
Sally quietly put on her blanket coat. “If you can stay a few hours, I’ll be back soon after it’s light,” she said. She turned to Sproatly. “You can wash up those dishes on the table, and get a brush and sweep this room out. If it’s not quite neat to-morrow you’ll do it again.”
Sproatly grinned as she went out. A few moments later the girl drove away through the bitter frost.
CHAPTER III
WYLLARD ASSENTS
Sally, who returned with her mother, passed a fortnight at Hawtrey’s homestead before Watson decided that his patient could be entrusted to Sproatly’s care. Afterwards she went back twice a week to make sure that Sproatly, in whom she had no confidence, was discharging his duties satisfactorily. With baskets of dainties for the invalid she had driven over one afternoon, when Hawtrey, whose bones were knitting well, lay talking to another man in his little sleeping-room.
There was no furniture in the room except the wooden bunk in which he lay, and a deerhide lounge chair he had made. The stove-pipe from the kitchen led across part of one corner, and then up again into the room beneath the roof above. It had been one of Sproatly’s duties since the accident to rise and renew the fire soon after midnight, and when Sally arrived he was outside the house, whip-sawing birch-logs and splitting them, an occupation he profoundly disliked.