silent, staring group, and at the man, who feebly tried to indicate to his wife the extending of some courtesy to the stranger.
"Set a cheer, Polly," he said weakly, offering his great hand. "You are right welcome, suh. Are you visitin' these parts?"
"This is the doctor I was telling you about, Cate,—Doctor Thryng. I begged him to come up and see could he do anything for you," said Cassandra. Then she urged the woman to go back to her work and take the children with her. "Doctor and I will look after your old man awhile." She succeeded in clearing the place of all but one lean hound, who continued to stand by his master and lick his hand, whining presciently, and one or two of the children, who lingered around the door to peer in curiously at the doctor.
A shutter near the bed was tightly closed and, in struggling to open it, Cassandra discovered it was broken at the hinges and had been nailed in place. David flew to her assistance and, wrenching out the nails, tore it free, letting in a flood of light upon the wretchedness around them. Then he turned his attention to the patient, a man of powerful frame, but lean almost to emaciation, who watched the young physician's face silently with widely opened blue eyes, their pale color intensified by the surrounding shock of matted, curling, vividly red hair and beard.
It required but a few moments to ascertain that the man's condition was indeed critical. Cassandra had gone out and now returned with her hands full of dry pine sticks. Bending on one