before she went home, she was cheerful of countenance and smiling. She
carried that same cheerfulness into the hospital itself and to Billy Long's
ward.

The active Billy was, as he himself expressed it, "fed up" on the hospital
by now. He was grateful for what they had done for him there and the way in
which they treated him in every way, but confinement was beginning to wear
on his spirits.

"Gee, Laura Belding!" ejaculated the young patient, seizing her hand with
both his own when she appeared, "a sight of you is just a stop-station this
side of eternity. Have they changed the hours? Aren't they twice as long as
they used to be?"

"No, indeed, my poor boy," Laura said. "There are only sixty minutes in
each. I wish I could shorten the time for you."

"Take it from me," growled Short and Long, having hard work to keep back
the tears, "this being in bed is the bunk. Don't let anybody tell you
different."

But Laura caught his attention the next moment with Purt Sweet's trouble.
What Chet had found out from Dan Smith, Hester Grimes' neighbor, interested
the quick mind of Billy Long immensely.

"Gee! I knew it must be something like that. Sure! Purt is shielding
somebody for Hester. That's it!"

"Have you no idea who it can be? The man who drove the car, I mean, or the
one who possibly took the nine-ten express out of town that night? Hester