An hour later they assembled and laid plans to weather the storm.
"She's worried about her hotel," Llewellyn announced. "If that was off her mind she'd have a better chance."
"Let's manage it for her," the Dummy offered. "I'll watch it to-night."
"An' who'll watch you?" queried the Kid.
"D'you reckon I'd run out on a pal like June?" stormed the Dummy, whereat Scrap Iron assured him he was positive that he would not, for the very good reason that he and Reddy would take care that no opportunity offered.
"You run the joint like you say, an' we'll lookout her game for her; then to-morrow night the other three can do it. We'll take turn an' turn about, an' them that's off shift will nurse her. I've been thinkin' now—if only we knowed something about women folks—"
"I been married once or twice, if that's any good," Thomasville ventured to confess; whereupon he was elected head nurse by virtue of his experience, and accordingly they went to work.
Dr. Whiting had promised to secure a woman to care for the sick girl, but women were scarce that winter and he was only partly successful, so the greater portion of the responsibility fell upon the Wags. He also spoke of removing June to the excuse for a hospital, but they would not hear to this. And so the battle for her life began.
It was a battle, too, for she grew rapidly worse and soon was delirious, babbling of strange things which tore at the hearts of the Wag-boys. Day after day, night after night, she lay racked and tortured, fighting the brave fight of youth, and through it all the six thieves tended her. They were ever at her side, coming and going like the wraiths of her distorted fancy, and while three of them divided the day into watches the other three ran the bunk-house, keeping strict account of every penny taken in. They O. K.'d one another's books, and it would have fared badly indeed with any one of them had he allowed the least discrepancy to appear in his reckoning.
It was a strange scene, this, a sick and friendless girl mothered by a gang of crooks. When June's condition improved they rejoiced with a deep ferocity that was pitiful; when it grew worse they went about hushed and terror-stricken. Through it all she called incessantly for Harry Hope, and it was Llewellyn who finally volunteered to go to Council City and fetch him—an offer that showed the others he was game.