The older man carried him up the bank. The girl followed, tottering a little with fatigue. There were dark circles under her eyes and her lips were white. At the top they met David Cranston the trader, in whose grim face surprise struggled with a welcoming courtesy. Seeing into the sick man's face he started.
"Is it Ralph Cowdray?" he asked.
The other man nodded.
"The poor lad!" exclaimed Cranston. "He stopped here six weeks ago. He is much changed."
"I am taking him to a doctor," the other said. "I am Jim Sholto from Milburn Gulch. This is my daughter."
Cranston bade her welcome with clumsy, old-fashioned deference. At Fort Cheever a white girl was like a creature from another world. Looking at her, his grim face softened with commiseration.
To Jim he said: "There's no doctor nearer than the Crossing. I expect the steamboat on her last trip within a week. Will you wait here for her?"
Jim shook his head. "Too uncertain," he said. "He might die on our hands. We will raft it down."
"Ye do well," said Cranston. "It is two hundred miles, but you can do it easy in three days by travelling nights, too. The river is smooth all the way. There's a kind of hotel at the Crossing where you can make him comfortable, and the police doctor is there."
"We will go on as soon as we eat," said Jim.