Page:West of Dodge (1926).pdf/107

 were brimming her eyes, her lips were trembling, but her soft voice was steady when she spoke.

"I am Mrs. Cottrell," she said, finishing Jim's one-sided introduction. "My daughter, Dr. Hall."

Elizabeth was not as steady as her mother. Her grief at sight of her father stretched out as white and silent as if ready for the grave numbed her beyond words. The pain of it was reflected in her face and stricken eyes.

"Oh, now," said Dr. Hall, putting down his book, comfort, assurance, in his almost brisk words, "it isn't as bad as that."

"I can't tell you what relief we feel to find Major Cottrell in the hands of a competent physician," the mother said, at once brightened and cheered by his comforting manner of confidence. "We didn't know another doctor had come to Damascus, we trembled for the consequences, thinking all the time he was in other hands. Were you with him from the first?"

"I had that good fortune, madam."

"It was ours," she returned, expressing a volume in her simple words.

"Will he get well, Dr. Hall?" Elizabeth asked, pleading hope in her low-pitched voice, a great, heart-finding appeal in her solemn brown eyes.

"I think so."

Dr. Hall spoke brightly, with as much comfort in his words as if he had made no little corner of reservation at all. He looked very well satisfied, very easy in mind and conscience, very competent and kindly judicial—dang his nickel-plated eyes! thought Justice—as he stood lifting himself to his toes with slow, easy movement of confident strength.