"Get hold of his right arm and I 'll take his left," directed Mrs. Jakes. "If we get him on his feet, perhaps he 'll rouse. Are you ready?"
Margaret closed her lips and put forth the strength that she had, and between them they dragged him to a sitting posture, with his head hanging back and his heels furrowed deep in the dust.
"Now, if I can just get behind him," panted Mrs. Jakes. "Don't let go. That's it. Now! Could you just help to lift him straight up?"
Margaret went quickly to her aid. It had become horrible. The gross carcass in their hands was inert like a flabby corpse, and its mere weight overtaxed them. They wrestled with it sobbingly, to the noise of their harsh breath and the shuffle of their straining feet on the grit of the road. Suddenly Margaret ceased her laboring and the doctor collapsed once more upon the ground.
"Why did you do that?" cried Mrs. Jakes. "He was nearly up."
"It was my chest," answered Margaret weakly. "It—it hurt."
There was a warm feeling in her throat and a taste in her mouth which she knew of old. She found her handkerchief and dabbed with it at her lips. The feeble light of the lantern showed her the result—the red spots on the white cambric.
"It 's just a strain," said Mrs. Jakes, dully. "That 's all. The doctor will see to it to-morrow. If you rest a moment, you 'll be all right." She hesitated, but her husband and her life's credit lay upon the ground at her feet, and she could not weigh Margaret's danger against those. "You wouldn't leave me now, my dear?" she supplicated.
"No," said the girl, after a moment's pause. "I won't leave you."
"What 's that?" cried Mrs. Jakes and put a quick frightened hand upon her arm. "Listen! Who is it?"