Two hours’ sleep did his wife secure for Burns before he woke, stoutly avowing himself fit for anything again, and setting off, immediately breakfast was over, for the place to which his thoughts had leaped with his first return to consciousness.

“Can’t rest till I see old Jord.  Did I tell you that he insisted on Aleck’s having the room next his, precisely as big and airy as his own?  There’s a door between, and when it’s open they can see each other.  When I left Jord the door was open, and he was staring in at Aleck, who was still sleeping off the anesthetic, and a big tear was running down Jord’s cheek.  He can’t stir himself, but that doesn’t seem to bother him any.  He’s going to suffer a lot of pain with his back, but he’ll suffer ten times more looking at that bandaged shoulder of Aleck’s.”

* * * * *

It was four days later that Ellen saw King.  She was prepared to find him, as Burns had called him, “game,” but she had not known just all that term means among men when it is applied to such a one as he.  If he had been receiving her after having suffered a bad wrench of the ankle he could not have treated the occasion more simply.

“This is mighty good of you,” he said, reaching up a well-developed right arm from his bed, where he lay flat on his back without so much as a pillow beneath his head.  His hair was carefully brushed, his bandages were concealed, his lips were smiling, and altogether he was, except for his prostrate position, no picture of an invalid.

“I’ve just been waiting to come,” she said, returning the firm pressure of his hand with that of both her own.

“And meanwhile you’ve kept me reminded of you by these wonderful flowers,” he said with a nod toward the ranks on ranks of roses which crowded table and window sills.

“Oh, but not all those!” she denied.  “I might have known you would be deluged with them.  Daisies and buttercups out of the fields would have been better.”

“No, because those you sent look like you.  Doctor Burns won’t grudge me the pleasure of saying now what I like to his wife—­and it’s the first time I’ve really dared tell you what I thought.”

“What a charming compliment!  But I’m going to send you something much more substantial now—­good things to eat, and books to read, if I can just find out what you like—­and even games to play, if you care for them.”

“I’ll be delighted, if they’re something Aleck and I can play together.  You see when that door is open we aren’t far apart, and it won’t be long, Doctor Burns says, before he’ll be walking in here to keep me company—­till he gets out.”

“He is doing well, I hear.  I’m so glad.”

“Yes, that husky young constitution of his is telling finely—­plus your husband’s surgery.  My poor boy!” He shut his lips upon the words, and kept them closely pressed together for an instant.  “My word, Mrs. Burns—­he’s the stuff that heroes are made of!  His living to earn for the rest of his life—­with one arm—­and you’d think he’d lost the tip of one finger.  If ever I let that boy go out of my employ—­why, he’s worth more as a shining example of pluck than other men are worth with two good arms!”