matter?"

"Your wife," said the woman, "--she's taken very bad, Mr. Gowdy."

He started toward the house without a word; but before he went out of
sight he turned and looked for a moment with a sort of half-smile at the
girl. For a while we were all as still as death. Finally Doctor Bliven
remarked that lots of folks were foolish about sick people, and that
more patients were scared to death by those about them than died of
disease. The girl said that that certainly was so. Doctor Bliven then
volunteered the assertion that Mr. Gowdy seemed to be a fine fellow, and
a gentleman if he ever saw one. Just then the woman came from across the
road again and asked for "the man who was a doctor."

"I'm a doctor," said Bliven. "Somebody wants me?"

She said that Mr. Gowdy would like to have him come into the house--and
he went hurriedly, after taking a medicine-case from his democrat wagon.
I saw my yellow-haired passenger of the Dubuque ferry meet him before
the door, throw her arms about him and kiss him. He returned her
greeting, and they went through the door together into the house.



3

I turned in, and slept several hours very soundly, and then suddenly
found myself wide awake. I got up, and as I did almost every night, went
out to look after my cattle. I found all but one of them, and fetched a
compass about the barns and stables, searching until I found her. As I