Stewart was really ill.  It became necessary to send Link Stevens for a physician.  Then Stewart began slowly to mend and presently was able to get up and about.  Stillwell said the cowboy lacked interest and seemed to be a broken man.  This statement, however, the old cattleman modified as Stewart continued to improve.  Then presently it was a good augury of Stewart’s progress that the cowboys once more took up the teasing relation which had been characteristic of them before his illness.  A cowboy was indeed out of sorts when he could not vent his peculiar humor on somebody or something.  Stewart had evidently become a broad target for their badinage.

“Wal, the boys are sure after Gene,” said Stillwell, with his huge smile.  “Joshin’ him all the time about how he sits around an’ hangs around an’ loafs around jest to get a glimpse of you, Miss Majesty.  Sure all the boys hev a pretty bad case over their pretty boss, but none of them is a marker to Gene.  He’s got it so bad, Miss Majesty, thet he actooly don’t know they are joshin’ him.  It’s the amazin’est strange thing I ever seen.  Why, Gene was always a feller thet you could josh.  An’ he’d laugh an’ get back at you.  But he was never before deaf to talk, an’ there was a certain limit no feller cared to cross with him.  Now he takes every word an’ smiles dreamy like, an’ jest looks an’ looks.  Why, he’s beginnin’ to make me tired.  He’ll never run thet bunch of cowboys if he doesn’t wake up quick.”

Madeline smiled her amusement and expressed a belief that Stillwell wanted too much in such short time from a man who had done body and mind a grievous injury.

It had been impossible for Madeline to fail to observe Stewart’s singular behavior.  She never went out to take her customary walks and rides without seeing him somewhere in the distance.  She was aware that he watched for her and avoided meeting her.  When she sat on the porch during the afternoon or at sunset Stewart could always be descried at some point near.  He idled listlessly in the sun, lounged on the porch of his bunk-house, sat whittling the top bar of the corral fence, and always it seemed to Madeline he was watching her.  Once, while going the rounds with her gardener, she encountered Stewart and greeted him kindly.  He said little, but he was not embarrassed.  She did not recognize in his face any feature that she remembered.  In fact, on each of the few occasions when she had met Stewart he had looked so different that she had no consistent idea of his facial appearance.  He was now pale, haggard, drawn.  His eyes held a shadow through which shone a soft, subdued light; and, once having observed this, Madeline fancied it was like the light in Majesty’s eyes, in the dumb, worshiping eyes of her favorite stag-hound.  She told Stewart that she hoped he would soon be in the saddle again, and passed on her way.