Under the care of Dr. Catlin who rode out from Crawling Water each day, and even more because of Dorothy's careful nursing, the wounded man was at last brought beyond the danger point and started on the road to health. He was very weak and very pale, but the one danger that Catlin had feared and kept mostly to himself, the danger of blood-poisoning, was now definitely past, and the patient's physical condition slowly brought about a thorough and complete recovery.
"Some of it you owe to yourself, Wade, as the reward of decent living, and some of it you owe to the Lord," Catlin told him smilingly. "But most of it you owe to this little girl here." He patted Dorothy on the shoulder and would not permit her to shirk his praise. "She's been your nurse, and I can tell you it isn't a pleasant job for a woman, tending a wound like yours."
"Is that so?" said Dorothy, mischievously. "That's as much as you know about it. It's been one of the most delightful jobs I ever had."
"She's a wonderful girl," said Wade, with a tender look at her, after they had laughed at her outburst.
"Oh, you just think that because I'm the only girl around here," she blushingly declared, and the physician kept right on laughing.
"There was another girl here once," said Wade. "Or at least she acted somewhat differently from anything you've done lately."
He was well enough now to receive his friends on brief visits, and Trowbridge was the first to drop in. Dorothy did not mind having Lem, but she was not sure she enjoyed having the others, for she had found the close association with Gordon so very sweet; but she told herself that she must not be foolish, and she welcomed all who came. Naturally so pretty a girl doing the honors of the house so well, and so closely linked with the fortunes of the host, gave rise to the usual deductions. Many were the quiet jokes which the cattlemen passed amongst themselves over the approaching wedding, and the festival they would make of the occasion.
"Well, good-by, Miss Purnell," said Trowbridge one day, smiling and yet with a curiously pathetic droop to his mouth.
"Miss Purnell?" Dorothy exclaimed, in the act of shaking hands.
"That's what I said." He nodded wisely. "Good-by, Miss Purnell." Refusing to be envious of his friend's good fortune, he laughed cheerily and was gone before she saw through his little joke.