Part 69

"I made some coffee for you, and you'll find some supper under a napkin on the table," explained Lee.

"Thank you."

"I'm sorry it isn't better. It's only cold chicken and sandwiches--"

"Only cold chicken!" he laughed. "My chief anxiety is lest it should not prove a whole chicken. I'm hungry as a coyote!"

"Well, now, good-night," said Redfield. "Doctor, you'll report as you go by?"

"Yes; expect me in half an hour or so."

And so Lee walked away with Redfield, almost entirely relieved of her care. "He can't be ill, can he?" she asked.

"I don't see how he can. His life has made him as clean and strong as an oak-tree on a windy slope. He is all right, and very happy. Your being there to meet him was very sweet to him, I could see that. If it should turn out that you should be the one to keep him here and in the Forest Service I shall be very grateful to you."

She did not reply to this, but walked along in silence by his side, feeling very small, very humble, but very content.

Lize was on the veranda. "Did he get through?"

"He's all right so far," returned Redfield, cheerily. "We left the doctor about to fly at him. We'll have a report soon."

They had hardly finished telling of how the ranger had descended the hill when the doctor arrived. "He hasn't a trace of it," was his report. "All he needs is sleep. I cut him off from his entire over-the-range outfit, and there's no reason why he should not come down to breakfast with you in the morning."

Mrs. Redfield thanked the doctor as fervently as if he had conferred a personal favor upon her, and the girl echoed her grateful words.

"Oh, that's all right," the doctor replied, in true Western fashion; "I'll do as much more for you any time." And he rode away, leaving at least one person too happy to sleep.

* * * * *

The same person was on the veranda next morning when Cavanagh, dressed in the Supervisor's best suit of gray cassimere, came striding across the lawn--too impatient of the winding drive to follow it. As he came, his face glowing with recovered health, Lee thought him the god of the morning, and went to meet him unashamed, and he took her to his arms and kissed her quite as he had promised himself to do.

"Now I know that I am delivered!" he exclaimed, and together they entered upon the building of a home in the New West.

THE END