Santry, too, was in almost constant attendance upon the sick man, and was as tender and solicitous in his ministrations as Dorothy herself. He ate little and slept less, relieving his feelings by oaths whispered into his mustache. He made the ranch hands move about their various duties as quietly as mice. Dorothy grew to be genuinely fond of him, because of their common bond of sympathy with Wade. Frequently they sat together in the sickroom reading the newspapers, which came out from town each day. On one such occasion, when Santry had twisted his mouth awry in a determined effort to fold the paper he was reading without permitting a single crackle, she softly laughed at him.
"You needn"t be so careful. I don"t think it would disturb him."
The old fellow sagely shook his head.
"Just the same, I ain"t takin" no chances," he said.
A moment afterward he tiptoed over to her, grinning from ear to ear, and with a clumsy finger pointed out the item he had been reading. An expression of pleased surprise flooded her face when she read it; they laughed softly together; and, finding that he was through with the paper, she put it away in a bureau drawer, meaning to show that item some day to Gordon.
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 a.s.sociation 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 pa.s.sed 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.
The next afternoon she was reading to Gordon when the far-away look in his eyes told her that he was not listening. She stopped, wondering what he could be dreaming about, and missing the sound of her voice, he looked toward her.
"You weren"t even listening," she chided, smilingly.
"I was thinking that I"ve never had a chance to get into those church-going clothes," he said, with a return of the old whimsical mood.
"But I look pretty clean, don"t I?"
"Yes," she answered, suddenly shy.
"Hair brushed? Tie right? Boots clean?"
To each question she had nodded a.s.sent. Her heart was beating very fast and the rosy color was mounting to the roots of her hair, but she refused to lower her eyes in panic. She looked him straight in the face with a sweet, tender, cool gaze.
"Yes," she said again.
"Well, then, give me your hand." He hitched his rocker forward so as to get closer to her, and took both her hands in this. "Dorothy, I"ve got something to tell you. I guess you know what it is." Her eyes suddenly became a little moist as she playfully shook her head. "Oh, yes, you do, dear, but I"ve got to say it, haven"t I? I love you, Dorothy. It sort of chokes me to say it because my heart"s so full."
"Mine is, too," she whispered, a queer catch in her voice. "But are you sure you love me?"
"Sure? Why, that other was only...."
Withdrawing her hands from his, she laid her fingers for an instant on his lips.
"I want to show you something," she said.
She went to the bureau, and taking out the paper which she had hidden there, brought it to him. It was a moment before she could find the item again, then she pointed it out. They read it together, as she and Santry had done the first time she had seen it. The item was an announcement from the Rexhills of the engagement of their daughter Helen to Mr.
Maxwell Frayne.
Dorothy watched Wade"s face eagerly as he read, and she was entirely content when she saw there no trace of his former sentiment for Helen Rexhill. He expressed genuine pleasure that Helen was not to be carried down with her father"s ruin, but the girl knew that otherwise the news had left him untouched. She had always thought that this would be so, but she was comforted to be a.s.sured of it.
"Why, that was only an infatuation," he explained. "Now I"m really in love. Thank Heaven, I...." When she looked at him there was a light in her glorious violet-shaded eyes that fairly took his breath away.
"Hush, dear," she said softly. "You"ve said enough. I understand, and I"m so...."
The rest was lost to the world as his arms went around her.