Marta was trying to explain to him, when Ellen Deal climbed quietly out.
“You are not strong enough to be on your feet any longer; you must have been walking about for several hours, when you know you are not expected to take any exercise,” she said authoritatively. Then, without the least hesitation or embarrassment, she took the perfectly strange young man by the elbow and led him to his chair. He accompanied her without a protest.
Afterwards, while Dan and Peggy were helping Marta to alight from the wagon, Ellen tried to make him understand what had occurred.
Secretly Rob Clark was both ashamed and amused by the situation—ashamed of his own exhibition of temper, for he was good-natured on most occasions. But also he was amused by the strange young woman’s immediate command of him. However he really was too weak to protest and, after discovering his sister’s injury, grateful to the newcomer beyond his present strength to express.
A short time after Ellen was in complete command, both of the situation and her two patients.
Marta was stretched on the cot in front of the tent and her brother had not been allowed to move from his chair.
With Peggy’s and Dan’s aid a fresh fire had been built and beef tea fed the invalid, who confessed to having had no breakfast because of his anxiety. Also the confusion inside the tent had been a little straightened out, although Dan and Peggy were obliged to leave when they might still have been useful.
However, they, too, were under Ellen’s command. She insisted that they drive over to the big hotel not far away in order to secure the advice of a physician. He was to be asked to come at once.
And seeing them depart, promising to return next day, Marta was not sure whether she was sorry or glad of the results of her own impertinence and the accident due to it. These months alone with her brother had been very depressing. They had no friends in the West and now, perhaps, if she behaved herself, the Camp Fire girls might be kind to her.