"Look a' here, doctor," said Arkansas Bill, indignantly; "she's got this way a-nussin' a feller—stranger, too—that ev'ry man in camp wuz afeard to go nigh."
"Is that so?" asked the doctor, in a tone considerably softened; "then she shall get well, if my whole time and attention can bring it about."
The sick woman lay in a burning fever for days, and the boys industriously drank her health, and bet heavy odds on her recovery. No singing was 'allowed anywhere in camp, and when an old feud broke out afresh between two miners, and they drew their pistols, a committee was appointed to conduct them at least two miles from camp, before allowing them to shoot.
The Sundays were allowed to pass in the commonplace quietness peculiar to the rest of the week, and men who were unable to forego their regular weekly spree were compelled to emigrate. Sim Ripson, though admitting that the change was decidedly injurious to his business, declared that he would cheerfully be ruined in business rather than have that woman disturbed; he was ever heard to say that, though of course there was no such place as heaven, there ought to be, for such woman.
One evening, as the crowd were quietly drinking and betting, Arkansas Bill suddenly opened the door of the store, and cried: "She's mendin'! The fever's broke—'sh-h!"
"My treat, boys," said Sim Ripson, hurrying glasses and favorite bottles on the bar.
The boys were just clinking glasses with Blizzer himself, who, during his wife's absence and illness, had drifted back to the store, when Arkansas Bill again opened the door.
"She's a-sinkin', all of a sudden!" he gasped. "Blizzer, yer wanted."
The two men hurried away, and the crowd poured out of the store. By the light of a fire in front of the hut in which the sick woman lay, they saw Blizzer enter, and Arkansas Bill remain outside the hut, near the door.
The boys stood on one foot, put their hands into their pockets and took them out again, snapped their fingers, and looked at each other, as if they wanted to talk about something that they couldn't. Suddenly the doctor emerged from the hut, and said something to Arkansas Bill, and the boys saw Arkansas Bill put both hands up to his face. Then the boys knew that their sympathy could help Blizzer's wife no longer.