"Oh, thank you!" breathed Elizabeth, sighing away a vast encumbrance of trouble and doubt.
"It was a godsend you were with him from the first!" Mrs. Cottrell said, her voice vibrant with emotion, softer for the great flood of thankfulness that suffused her eyes and made her hearty face pale.
"He was right here," said Justice, his coarseness so evident upon him in this refined company. "He's the feller—"
"I am the new railroad doctor, Mr. Justice would say," Dr. Hall interrupted, giving the old bushwhacker a silencing look. "I'm not a practitioner in general. The local doctor was—that is to say—I believe he—"
"Was drunk, as usual," said Elizabeth. "Thank heaven!"
"Blind," said Justice, with large elucidation. Then he added, to give it emphasis and remove all doubt: "Blind-stinkin' drunk."
Jim saw which way the wind stood for Old Doc Ross in that company. He wanted to make a show of coming over to the right side.
Mrs. Cottrell asked about the nature of her husband's wound, the cloud of trouble that had cleared for a little while out of her face settling darkly again as Dr. Hall explained. She had thought for a few moments, from the doctor's comforting assurance, that it had not been as serious as she had been informed in the news which brought her home.
"I don't look for any complications, everything is satisfactory, pointing to a quick recovery," Dr. Hall said. "He has vitality enough for two men."
