CHAPTER II.

A MOUNTAIN MAIDEN.

Lester Conway, physician in ordinary to the inhabitants of ---- County, Pennsylvania, was placidly jogging along the mountain road, on his regular round among his patients.

He was a young man yet was Lester Conway. He was a successful one--a strong, self-reliant man, and a talented man withal. One need only look at his massive brow and well-shaped head to see that; and there was more than talent in this man’s face. There was firmness and a patient determination, that proved him likely to gain any high point he might set his heart on.

But success does not always imply gain, and for all his extensive practice, Doctor Conway was far from being rich. Not that his poverty troubled him any; he had enough to get along on, and, generally speaking, was perfectly contented with his lot in life.

Just at present, however, he looked a trifle doubtful, for he was pondering over a great problem, as his pony jogged along the quiet road--a problem that most of us ponder over at some period of our lives. And we solve it, too, in several ways, and generally, be it confessed, to our greater comfort and happiness; for this great problem that occupied the doctor’s mind, even to the exclusion of his practice, was the old, old, but ever new problem of love and matrimony.

He could not have told even himself when he had first fallen in love with pretty Norine Bright. But that he was in love there could not be the slightest doubt. Perhaps he had never really _fallen_ in love at all. It was not like him to feel any sudden accession of passion; but ever since he had chosen Jim Bright as his one particular friend, he had felt a regard almost akin to reverence for his favorite sister. He had drifted into love, and that passion, being of slow growth, became, in course of time, part of his being.

Whether he was loved in return, he did not know, for he had never dared to find out. But now he was determined to satisfy himself on that point, and hoped, when his pony jogged back over the quiet mountain road, he--the doctor, not the pony--would have solved the problem to his satisfaction.

Surely it was a good omen to find Miss Norine leaning over the gate in front of the little cottage when he rode up, and surely the doctor might have derived considerable encouragement from the bright smile of welcome he received.

A very difficult matter to describe, this young lady, as she stood chatting pleasantly with her friend. Not because she was beautiful--for an artist probably would not have called her so--and yet her face was very fair to look upon. Not on account of her dress, for I doubt if any of my lady friends would have envied the plain though neat calico dress and heavy calfskin shoes; but they might well have envied the clear, sunlit complexion and massive coils of golden-brown hair that were wound so tightly over the small, well-set head, and no artist would have endangered his reputation by venturing to praise the contour of her form or the light, willowy grace of every movement.

“Oh, doctor,” she cried merrily, “I hope you did not expect to find a patient here. We are dreadfully healthy, I assure you.”

“Now, that is just my luck,” answered Conway, with mock gravity. “I have received a new supply of drugs, and I am anxious to try if they are effective. I don’t suppose now you would have any objection to my dosing Jim a little in the cause of science?”

“Indeed, sir! Just let me catch you at it. You would be sure to make him dreadfully sick.”

“Only to make him well again, I assure you,” replied the doctor. “I have to call at Higgins’, however, and shall probably get some practice there.”

“I should think they gave you practice enough,” returned Norine gravely. “It is dreadful the way they live. What is it now--an accident or the fever again?”

“Only the fever this time,” said Conway cheerfully. “Do you know, I feel quite grateful to that family. They are worth a great deal to me in the way of experience.”

“If you could only teach them to derive some benefit from experience, you would have some cause for gratitude,” replied the girl gravely. “But I suppose there is no hope for that. I will go over this afternoon and give them a lecture.”

“I don’t imagine your lecture will hurt them much,” retorted the doctor. “It is generally in the nature of jelly, isn’t it, or chickens? I wouldn’t mind being lectured that way myself. But you must not rob Jim and yourself for those people.”

“Oh, no,” laughed Norine; “I never do that. Of course we send them little things sometimes, when they are ill, if only to offset the nasty medicine you give them. They are so poor,” she added--“poorer even than we are,” this with a little sigh.

“Well,” said the doctor, throwing his old-fashioned saddlebags over his shoulder, “I will walk over through the woods, and perhaps you will be charitable enough to give me some dinner when I return?”

“You know you are welcome,” said Norine quietly. “I am only sorry that Jim will not be here--he has gone to the village.”

Doctor Conway was not at all sorry that she would be alone, but he did not say so.

“Has Jim gone to the village on business?” he inquired.

“No--not business exactly,” replied the girl, with a troubled look. “The fact is, doctor,” she said frankly, after a moment’s hesitation, “we have written to our Aunt Darling--she must be so lonesome now in her old age, and we thought--Jim and I--that it was time that ridiculous family quarrel came to an end. She is our aunt, you know,” she added, apologetically, “even if she did treat father shamefully.”

“And you have invited her up here, I suppose, with the intention of paying her for her past neglect by taking care of her for the rest of her life?”

“Yes,” answered Norine simply. “If she will come.”

“Well, then,” cried the doctor impatiently, “I hope she won’t come. She doesn’t deserve such treatment, I’m sure.”

“No,” said Norine demurely, “I suppose not. If she were only an object for practice now?”

“Ah! Miss Norine,” laughed her friend, “you should know by this time that a doctor never takes his own medicine--always remember that. And now I must get on there before they have another accident,” and with a merry nod, he struck through the woods and soon disappeared.

Norine stood leaning over the gate, in the bright sunshine, until the doctor passed out of sight. Then she entered the house and set about preparing a basket with such delicacies as the humble place afforded. After fixing this to her satisfaction, she flitted around from one household duty to another, like the busiest of busy bees, or more like a sensible, modern everyday household fairy.

“There!” she exclaimed ruefully, “if it ain’t just provoking! Not a thing in the house to eat, and the doctor coming to dinner,” and she gave a little sigh of vexation. “I suppose I _could_ kill a chicken,” she mused, “but I hate to. I guess I’d better take that basket over first. Perhaps I can get one of the boys to come over and do it for me.”

Getting a shawl and pinning it closely around her, she put on her hat and was ready to start. It was not necessary to lock the doors of the little cottage; she simply closed them against the predatory instincts of the chickens, and taking the basket, she started on a rapid walk through the woods.

It was not at all pleasant walking after the storm of last night, but her feet were well protected from the wet, and her plain calico dress was not likely to be injured any by it. So she went rapidly along, only stopping occasionally to pluck an early blossom, or one of the younger and more feathery of the ferns.

She had accomplished rather more than one-half her journey, when she came to a deserted cabin--deserted, by the way, by these same Higginses who were so generally ill.

It stood in a little clearing--some two or three acres, perhaps--that at one time had been a garden, but was now overgrown with weeds, and the very picture of desolation.

Her path led within a few feet of the door; she could see the imprint of the doctor’s footsteps leading on in front of her. He had passed the door without stopping, and she was passing it when--how small a thing can change a human life--the mere floating of an insect past her face, and the involuntary turning of her eyes to follow its flight, caused her to look directly into the open door of the cabin.

Now, Miss Norine was not timid by any means; her semi-solitary life had taught her self-reliance. But there _were_ tramps around at times, and when she saw the figure of a man stretched on the floor, face downward, she started from the door in great haste, her heart palpitating with fright.

But the figure lay so still she could not help glancing at it again. There was a dark pool beside the man’s face. What was it? Blood?

She was very pale now, but not at all frightened. Some one, whoever he was, was evidently hurt, and she drew closer, half in fear that he might be dead.

She spoke to him in rather a quavering voice, but still bravely. There was no answer. She drew nearer still, and called to him again, but there was no movement in the body to show that her voice had been heard.

Frightened now, but not for herself, she bent down and touched him. He was still alive, but seemed utterly insensible.

She unbuckled the strap that held the crushed and battered knapsack to his back, and tried as well as she could to move him into an easier position, uttering little cries of pity and excitement all the time she was doing it. Then, with a glance at the dark, handsome face to see if he still lived, she started and ran as she had never run before through the woods.

It was no great distance to the shanty occupied by the ailing Higginses, but the distance seemed interminable to the flying girl. Panting and breathless, she burst into the little cabin, and sank into a chair.

“Norine! Norine! what is the matter?” cried Doctor Conway, astonished and frightened.

“A man!” gasped Norine--“in the old cabin! He is dying--come quick!”

And she grasped the doctor’s arm and pulled him toward the door.

“Wait--sit down,” commanded Doctor Conway, calmly. “Now tell me what it is.”

Commanding herself as well as she could, Norine gasped out the story of her discovery, and in the doctor’s company, and followed by all the Higginses that did not happen to be sick that day, she returned to the shanty in the woods.

The doctor knelt down by the side of the prostrate man, and carefully examined him, and Norine could see by the grave expression of his face that there was more chance for death than life in this new patient.

“How can you move him, doctor?” she inquired, anxiously.

“It is where I can move him to that troubles me most,” replied the doctor, as he forced a few drops of some liquid between the set teeth.

“Will he live, do you think?”

“He may. It will depend on the care he receives,” replied Conway shortly. “I suppose, Mike,” he said, turning to the elder Higgins, “we can take him up to your place for a day or two?”

But Norine interfered.

“You say he wants good care? Bring him down to our place. It is not much farther, and we can give him better care.”

The doctor remonstrated feebly. Of course it would be better for this unknown, but she must remember that he _was_ unknown; and think of the work it would entail on her.

Norine, however, paid no attention to this; but calling the eldest Higgins girl to follow her, and telling the doctor that she would have a bed prepared by the time they got there, she started rapidly homeward.

It was no easy job to get the inanimate figure through the woods; but they managed, with the aid of the last shutter the cabin could boast of, to extemporize a sort of litter. Placing the man on this, they succeeded, after overcoming many difficulties, in placing him in the bed prepared for him.

It was many hours, however, before Lester Conway left his new patient. But when he did so, it was with the assurance that the man would live.

“He will have no one but you to thank for it, Miss Norine,” he said, on leaving. “I hope he will not prove ungrateful.”

And then the doctor, mild and sedate as ever, mounted his little pony and jogged home.