And the sound of the well-loved voice roused the patient’s interest in the things about him.
“Where am I?” he asked, in a weak whisper, turning his eyes to the face so anxiously regarding him.
But Diane’s troubles had been lifted from her shoulders for the moment and the nurse was uppermost once more. She signed to him to keep quiet while she administered the doses Doc. Osler had prepared for him. Then she answered his question.
“You are in the room adjoining mine,” she said quietly.
Her woman’s instinct warned her that no more reassuring information could be given him.
And the result justified it. He smiled faintly, and, in a few moments, his eyes closed again and he slept.
Then the girl set about her work in earnest. She hurried down-stairs and communicated the good news to Joe. She went in search of Jake, to have a man despatched for the doctor. For the time at least all her troubles were forgotten in her thankfulness at her lover’s return to life. Somehow, as she passed out of the house, the very sunlight seemed to rejoice with her; the old familiar buildings had something friendly in their bald, unyielding aspect. Even the hideous corrals looked less like the prisons they were, and the branding forges less cruel. But greatest wonder of all was the attitude of Jake when she put her request before him. The giant smiled upon her and granted it without demur. And, in her gladness, the simple child smiled back her heartfelt thanks. But her smile was short-lived, and her thanks were premature.
“I’m pretty nigh glad that feller’s mendin’,” Jake said. “Say, he’s a man, that feller.” He turned his eyes away and avoided her smiling gaze, and continued in a tone he tried to make regretful. “Guess I was gettin’ to feel mean about him. We haven’t hit it exac’ly. I allow it’s mostly temper between us. Howsum, I guess it can’t be helped now—now he’s goin’.”
“Going?” the girl inquired. But she knew he would be going, only she wondered what Jake meant.