Even as she spoke the complaining creak of the elevator could he heard, and presently two orderlies appeared at the end of the corridor bearing a stretcher.

Beside it, with head erect and jaw set, strode a strangely commanding figure.  Six feet two he loomed in the shadows, a gaunt, raw-boned old mountaineer.  On his head was a tall, wide-brimmed hat and in his right hand he carried a bulky carpet sack.  The left sleeve of his long-tailed coat hung empty to the elbow.  The massive head with its white flowing beard and hawklike face, the beaked nose and fierce, deep-set eyes, might have served as a model for Michael Angelo when he modeled his immortal Moses.

As the orderlies passed through the door of No. 16 and lowered the stretcher, the old man put down his carpet sack and grimly watched the nurse uncover the patient.  Under the worn homespun coverlet, stained with the dull dyes of barks and berries, lay an emaciated figure, just as it had been brought into the hospital.  One long coarse garment covered it, and the bare feet with their prominent ankle bones and the large work-hardened hands might have belonged to either a boy or a girl.

“Take that thar head wrappin’ off!” ordered the old man peremptorily.

A nurse carefully unwound the rough woolen scarf and as she did so a mass of red hair fell across the pillow, hair that in spite of its matted disorder showed flashes of gleaming gold.

“We’ll get her on the bed,” a night nurse said to an assistant.  “Put your arm under her knees.  Don’t jar the stretcher!”

Before the novice could obey another and a stronger arm was thrust forward.

“Stand back thar, some of you-uns,” commanded a loud voice, “I’ll holp move Sal myself.”

In vain were protests from nurses and orderlies alike, the old mountaineer seemed bent on making good use of his one arm and with quick dexterity he helped to lift her on the bed.

“Now, whar’s the doctor?” he demanded, standing with feet far apart and head thrown back.

The doctor was at the desk in the corridor, speaking to Miss Fletcher in an undertone: 

“We only made a superficial examination down-stairs,” he was saying, “but it is evidently a ruptured appendix.  If she’s living in a couple of hours I may be able to operate.  But it’s ten to one she dies on the table.”

“Who are they, and where did they come from?” Miss Fletcher asked curiously.

“Their name is Hawkins, and they are from somewhere in the Kentucky mountains.  Think of his starting with her in that condition!  He can’t read or write; it’s the first time he has ever been in a city.  I am afraid he’s going to prove troublesome.  You’d better get him out of there as soon as possible.”

But anyone, however mighty in authority, who proposed to move Jeb Hawkins when he did not choose to be moved reckoned unknowingly.  All tactics were exhausted from suggestion to positive command, and the rules of the hospital were quoted in vain.