Page:Frank Packard - The Miracle Man.djvu/153

 dear, practical business head of yours makes it even harder for you than it is for me—and I can hardly realize it myself. But I am cured, dear, and I'm well and strong, and I don't need any help—why, Robert, I am going to help you now, instead of always being a source of worry and anxiety to you. Come, let us go."

"If you will walk slowly," suggested Madison, "I'll speak to the little Holmes boy and his parents, and bring them with us."

He moved away as he spoke—in the direction of a racking cough, that rose above the confused, murmuring, whispering, shaken voices on every hand; and in a little knot of people he was, for a moment, pressed close against Pale Face Harry.

"All right," whispered Pale Face Harry, "it's in your pocket now—but, say, no more runs like that for me, I'm all in. I thought sure I was cured myself—I hadn't coughed for—"

"Never mind about that now," said Madison rapidly. "I want the crowd kept away from the doors of the bank vault if they show any tendency to get too close, though I don't think that'll happen—they're too numbed and scared yet. But you know the game. Keep the awe going and the 'holy ground' signs up. Anybody that steps across that stretch between the trees and the cottage on and after the present date of writing does it with bowed head and his shoes off—get the idea?"

Pale Face Harry grinned.

"That's easy," he said. "Anything'd steer