"And you have me here and are caring for me?"

"We brought you here and are caring for you, Jean," she repeated.

"It is singular," said he.

"What is singular?"

"That you have twice happened to be where you can serve me when I am injured or in danger." She was silent. She didn't know how to answer, or that there was to be any answer.

"Has a doctor been here?"

"Yes."

"What did he seem to think of it?"

"He said your wound was serious, but not fatal."

"Did he say I could get up soon?"

"He didn't say, Jean; but I don't think it would be wise." He groaned.

"Now you must be patient and not fret yourself into a fever," she said seriously.

"But I have so much work to do."

"That will have to wait. Your health is first," she said firmly.

"But the work should be done," he insisted.

"But you must consider your health before you can even think about the work."

He groaned again. She was thoughtful. She was considerate, and she could see that he would worry about his work and injure himself or risk fever.

"I'll speak to papa, and perhaps George can take your place for a few days, a week or until you can get out."

"You are so kind, Agnes," he said then. "You are always so thoughtful. I don't know how I can accept all you do for me."

"Please hush--don't mention it." She arose and presently returned with her father.

"Ah-ha," he always greeted. "So you've come to. Thought something would show up in that 'bargain.'"

"Please don't, father," admonished Agnes, frowningly.

"I'll look after everything while you are down, old man," said Stewart.

"I'll start the horses you've been working this afternoon. Aggie has explained everything. I understand."

"I'm so thankful," he said, then closing his eyes, and a few minutes later had fallen asleep.

CHAPTER XV

OH, MY JEAN!

When Jack Stewart left Indiana, and left owing the two hundred dollars which was secured by a chattel mortgage on his horses, he failed to do something he now had cause to regret. The man to whom he owed this money agreed to give him one year in which to pay it, but didn't renew the mortgage. He was a close friend of Jack's, and there had been no worry.

But the man died; his affairs fell into the hands of an administrator, whose duties were to clean up, to realize on all due and past due matter. And because the note of Jack Stewart's was due and past due, the extension being simply a verbal one, the administrator wrote Jack demanding that he take up his note at once.

We know the circumstances of Jack Stewart; that because Jean Baptiste had hired his son Bill, and now was boarding with them, he was able to get along; but Jack Stewart had nothing with which to pay $200 notes....

So while Jean Baptiste was recovering from his illness, Jack Stewart had cause to be very much worried.

Possessed, however, with a confidence, Jack took the matter up with the banker in the town where he received his mail. Now a common saying in a new country is: "I'm going to borrow five dollars and start a bank...."

Inferring that while there is, as a whole, an abundance of banks in a new country, they do not always have the wherewithal to loan. What they have is usually retained for the accommodation of their regular patrons, and they were unable to accommodate Jack, even had they wished to do so.

Now, he could have secured the money had he been a claimholder or a land owner. But Jack, being neither, found himself in a bad plight. He had Aggie write a long letter in which he tried to explain matters, and requested until fall to pay, as had been verbally agreed upon. But the class of people in the old East who regard the new West as a land of impossibilities, where drought burns all planted crops to crisp, where grasshoppers eat what is left, who still regard those who would stake their fortunes and chances in the West as fools, were not all dead.

The administrator happened to be one of this kind. He had no confidence in the country Jack wrote about, the crops he had planted; what he expected to reap, and no patience withal into the bargain. So he wrote Jack a brief letter, and also one to the bank in the town, sending the papers with it at the same time, with instructions to foreclose at a given time. And when Jack knew more of it, he was confronted with paying the note in thirty days or having his horse taken, and sold at auction.

Jean Baptiste recovered, went back to his work, and noticed that Jack Stewart and Agnes were much worried; but, of course, didn't understand the cause of it.

"Have you tried elsewhere, father?" said Agnes when they had gotten the notice giving them thirty days' grace.

"But I am not known, dear. There is not much money in a new country, and it is very difficult to get credit where there is nothing to lend."

"There must be some way to avoid this. Oh, that man, why couldn't he be reasonable!"

"It is always bad when one has to write. If I were back in Indiana I could go and see this man and reason it out, but when a thousand miles is between us--it's bad!"

"If we could have only just three months."

"Two months," he exclaimed.

The days that followed were days of grave anxiety, of nervous anticipation for them. There was but one person they could turn to at such a time, and that was Jean Baptiste. Agnes thought of him, she started to speak with her father regarding him, but in the end did not bring herself to do so.

So the time went on, and the thirty days became twenty; and the twenty fell to ten; and the ten fell to five, and then Jean Baptiste could bear their worry no longer without speaking.

"You and your father have been very kind to me, Agnes, and I can see you are greatly worried about something. If I could help you in any way, I would be glad to do so."

She was so near to crying when she heard this that she had much difficulty keeping back the tears. But she managed to say:

"Why, it's nothing serious. Just a little matter, that's all," and she went into her room. He pondered. It was more than that. Of this he was sure. He left the house and came around to where Jack sat, and was moved by his expression. But Jack would say nothing. He could not understand.

He tried to dismiss the subject from his mind, and so came Sunday, the day of days.

He was walking from his meal to his place to look over his crops, when from up the road he caught the sound of buggy-wheels. Two men, driving a single horse hitched to a light buggy were coming his way. When they caught sight of him, they hurried the animal forward slightly by touching him up with the whip, and beckoned to him to stop. Presently they drew up to where he stood and he recognized one as a homesteader, and having a claim near and the other as a professional dealer in horses. They exchanged greetings and some remarks about the weather and crops, and then the trader said:

"By the way, Jean, where does that old Scotchman live out this way? The old fellow who moved out here recently from Indiana?"

"That's the place there," and Baptiste pointed to the top of the house that could just be seen from where they stood.