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 "I'll have to look into that. There's something to replace range cattle in this country—the Almighty must have made something. I'll have to look into that. Two dollars a bushel is away too high for feed, though. It would have to come down to fifty cents to make it any practical use."

"I don't know, but I hope Holbrook can make a go of it. He appears to be a fine, clean young man."

"How is the baby?" Elizabeth inquired, turning abruptly from her letter. She had been sitting with fingers idle on the keys since the first mention of the visit to the hostile neighborhood.

"What baby?" Mrs. Cottrell asked, coming into the room at that moment.

"Some farmer's kid Dr. Hall went over to Simrall to see yesterday, mother."

"Why, Dr. Hall!" Mrs. Cottrell's eyes were as full of fear as if he had come from some notorious plague district, carrying contagion into her home. "You must not put your life in danger—"

"It was only tonsilitis," Dr. Hall said assuringly. "The child's all right."

"The child!" Elizabeth repeated with meaning stress, as if he had been caught in some woeful dereliction and offered a poor excuse. Her fingers rushed to their work again, with a sound like hail on a tin roof.

Mrs. Cottrell looked at the tall doctor tenderly, understanding him better than he understood himself.