The mail-carrier would have asked questions, but she cut him short.
“How long will it be before you can tell Gordon?” she asked.
“Well,” answered the man reflectively, “I’m heading right back for the settlement, but it’s a league to Gordon’s, anyway. He could be here in two hours, if he starts right off, and, considering what the trail’s like, that’s blamed fast travelling.”
He disappeared into the darkness, and the girl went back to the ranch. It was, perhaps, significant that she should feel sure that the man she had sent for would obey the summons, but she grew anxious while the two 20 hours slipped by. At last, a man opened the door and walked in, with the water dripping from the long outer garment he flung off. He was a young man, with a bronzed face and keen grey eyes, and he had swung the axe, as one could see by his lithe carriage and the hardness of his hands, but there was something professional in his manner as he stooped down, regarding Nasmyth closely while he gripped the stranger’s wrist. Then he turned to the girl.
“He’s very sick,” Gordon said. “Guess you have no objections to my putting him in your father’s bunk. First, we’ll warm the blankets.”
The girl rose to help him, and––for she was strong––they stripped off most of Nasmyth’s garments and lifted him into the bunk in the next room. Then Gordon sent her for the blankets, and, when he had wrapped them round Nasmyth, he sat down and looked at her.
“Pneumonia,” he said. “Anyway, in the meanwhile, I’ll figure on it as that, though there’s what one might call a general physical collapse as well. Where did he come from?”
“I don’t know,” said the girl.
“Your father won’t be back for a week?”
“It’s scarcely likely.”