when she had gone he asked the nurse not to admit her ain.
He had one or two visitors, Mr. Tulloss, Bill, Mrs. Mal lory. Once even Gus came on his crutches and stood grinning his strange smile in the doorway. Gus was "sure touched in the head."
"Reckon them Indians put a curse on you, Tom!" he said, and disappeared chuckling, as mysteriously as he had come.
Even Nellie Mallery came. She was growing up now, was self-conscious and delicately made up. But although she simpered and posed somewhat for Tom's benefit, the old infatuation was apparently gone. She was "going with" the new clerk at the drug store.
"What's he like, Nellie? Nice fellow?"
"He's the best dancer in town."
"That's the h that's a mighty poor recommendation for a husband, my child," he said paternally. "You better look him over before you close the deal."
But Nellie only smiled.
Mr. Tulloss's visit was only a trifle less mysterious than Gus's. He was, he said, going East. Jennie wanted some theaters and clothes, and he—well, he had a little business of his own to attend to.
"You hurry up and get well, Tom," he said. "Maybe I'll see you there. You never can tell." Then he went away.
And so matters stood when one day Doctor Dunham signed his card for him, and gave him a parting admonition before he left.
"You'll have considerable more use of that foot from now on, Tom, if you're careful. But if you abuse it, don't come whining back to me."
"I'm plumb grateful to you, doc. And if you'll let me know how much I owe you"
"You don't owe me a red cent," said old Dunham testily. "It was worth the price of admission for me to get in there and see what those eastern fellows with their rubber gloves and folderol thought they were doing to you!"
Tom was very happy that day. He left the hospital,
