“I’ve told him that already,” said Tim.  “He knows everybody in Six Stars, I guess, and he says as soon as you get well and come back to the office, he will take a holiday himself, fox hunting.”

“Poor little Colonel!” murmured Weston.  “He’ll have a melancholy career.  And Mary, too, she’ll——­”

“But it was when I told him about Mary that he made up his mind to come,” Tim said.

“Indeed.”  The girl spoke very quietly.  “And, perhaps, Tim, you’ll send Edith along to help us.  We women of Black Log are so clumsy.”

“A good idea,” said Weston.  “Capital.  You must bring Miss Smyth up, too, Tim.”

“Parker,” I corrected, “Edith Parker.”

“But is it Parker?” Weston appealed to my brother.  “Mark tells me she’s the book-keeper’s daughter.  Has old Smyth gone?”

“No,” Tim stammered, very much confused.  “I guess you don’t know Parker.  He’s come lately.”

“That explains it, then,” said Weston.

But he turned and looked away from us, his brow knitted.  Something seemed to puzzle him, for he was frowning, but by and by the old cynical smile came back.

He said suddenly:  “Tim, I wish you luck.  I’m glad anyway it isn’t Smyth’s daughter.  That was what I couldn’t understand.  Ever see Smyth’s daughter?  No.  Well, you needn’t bemoan it.  I dare say Miss Parker is all you picture her, and I hope you’ll win.”

“Don’t you think you’d better rest now?” asked Tim, with sudden solicitation.  Though he addressed himself to Weston, his eyes were appealing to the doctor.

“I think I had,” Weston answered, not waiting for the physician to interpose any order.  “I get tuckered out pretty easily these days, with this confounded bullet-hole in me—­but stay a moment, Tim.  They’ve got a letter from me at the office by this time.  It may surprise them; it may surprise you, but I wanted you to know I’d fixed it all right for you, my boy.  I did it for Edith’s sake.”

Tim, with face flushed and hands outstretched in protest, arose from his chair and went to the bedside.

“But don’t you see it’s all a joke,” he cried.  “I can’t take it.  Won’t you believe me this time?  There isn’t any Edith!”

“I knew that long ago, Tim,” Weston answered quietly.  “But there may be some day.”

He turned his back to us.

“Please go,” he said brusquely.  “I want to rest.  Don’t stand over me that way, Tim.  Why, you look like little Colonel!”

* * * * * *

At the school-house door Tim halted suddenly.

“I’m going back, Mark,” he whispered, “just for a minute.  Weston will think I’m a fraud and I want to tell him something.  Now that the others have left I may have a chance.  Confound these kind-hearted women that overrun the house!  Why, a fellow couldn’t say a word without a dozen ears to hear it.”

“I’ll go back with you,” said I.