She "didn' know how Dave was," she said glumly. "The Doctor said he was
better. She couldn' see no change. Yes, he could go in, she s'posed, if
he wanted to," she said ungraciously.

Keith entered. The boy was lying on a big bed, his head resting against
the frame of the little opening which went for a window, through which
he was peeping wistfully out at the outside world from which he was to
be shut off for so many weary weeks. He returned Keith's greeting in the
half-surly way in which he had always received his advances since the
day of the row; but when Keith sat down on the bed and began to talk to
him cheerily of his daring in climbing where no one else had ventured to
go, he thawed out, and presently, when Keith drifted on to other stories
of daring, he began to be interested, and after a time grew
almost friendly.

He was afraid they might have to cut his leg off. His mother, who always
took a gloomy view of things, had scared him by telling him she thought
it might have to be done; but Keith was able to reassure him. The Doctor
had told him that, while the fracture was very bad, the leg would
be saved.

"If he had not been as hard as a lightwood knot, that fall would have
mashed him up," said the Doctor. This compliment Keith repeated, and it
evidently pleased Dave. The pale face relaxed into a smile. Keith told
him stories of other boys who had had similar accidents and had turned
them to good account--of Arkwright and Sir William Jones and Commodore
Maury, all of whom had laid the foundation for their future fame when
they were in bed with broken legs.

When Keith came away he left the boy comforted and cheered, and even the