“What is it?”
“Nothing,” she blushed, “I was talking to myself.”
“You were blowing down my neck,” said Bobby, who was perched in front of her. “If you were whiskering to me, I didn’t hear what you said. ’Tain’t perlite to whisker in comp’ny, and, ’sides, I always tell my ’ployer what you say ’bout him, anyhow.”
Helen was silent. Would she ever be able to live down all the unkind things she had said about Dr. Wright? How could he be so nice to her? Of course, she understood that he had done what any physician would have done in treating the wound, although he might have called Lewis Somerville to do the extremely objectionable part of the process of cleaning the bite. Since Lewis was a cousin and in the mountains as protector to her and her sisters, it might have been up to him to render first aid, since the tendon Achilles is so situated that it would take a contortionist to administer treatment to oneself. If Dr. Wright had only done his duty as laid down in the code of medical ethics, he certainly had a wonderfully pleasing sick room manner and his patients must one and all give him praise for sympathy and understanding.
“Gwen done promised me’n Josh to have some gingerbread made by the time we gits back from hiking,” broke in Bobby. “I is a-hopin’ that all this joltin’ is gonter shake down my lunch some, ’cause sho’s you’s born I don’t want what I done et. If Josephus stumbles agin I reckon my stomick will growl an’ then I’m most sho’ I kin hole a leetle mo’ if it’s gingerbread. Gwen kin make the bes’es’ an’ sof’es’ an’ blackes’ gingerbread what I ever et.”
At the mention of Gwen, Helen’s thoughts went back to the Devil’s Gorge where her father had met such a tragic end, and the wallet she had seen in the branches of the scrub oak tree flashed in her mind’s eye.
“The wallet! The wallet! We forgot to get it out of the tree,” she exclaimed.
“By Jove! So we did! Somehow, other things seemed more important.”
“I wonder what it was. It might have been in the Englishman’s pocket, and when he fell down the cliff, it might have got caught in the branches of the scrub oak. I wish I knew.”
Camp looked very peaceful and homelike when the hikers returned. The card players were still at it and seemed all unconscious of the lengthening shadows. Mrs. Tate took occasion while she was dummy to embrace her offspring and to suggest that she put witchhazel on her sunburned countenance. The bachelor uncle played through his no trump hand before he could assure himself of his niece’s safety. Miss Lizzie Somerville had felt no uneasiness about the crowd, because was not her beloved Lewis taking care of them? She was somewhat concerned when she learned that her favorite among the girls had sprained her ankle but thanked her stars that it was only a sprain and not a snake bite or something terrible.