"
"In that case," he answered coldly, "I cannot assume responsibility for
what may happen."
She made a gesture of surrender, weakly.
"Look back in on them now," she said. "If you don't find father quiet,
you may go in to him."
Doctor Byrne obeyed, opening the door softly. He saw Joe Cumberland
prone, of course, upon the couch. One hand lay as usual across his
breast, but the other was at his side, clasped in the hands of Dan
Barry. The old cattleman slept. Yes, there was no doubt that for the
first time in many days he slumbered soundly. The lean, narrow chest
rose and fell with deep, slow breaths; the eyes were closed, and there
was no twitching of muscles to betray ragged nerves or a mind that
dreamed fiercely while the body slept. Far over the sleeping man leaned
the stranger, as if he were peering closely into the closed eyes of Joe
Cumberland. There was a tenseness of watching and waiting in his
attitude, like the runner on the mark, or like the burden-bearer lifting
a great weight, and Byrne gathered, in some mysterious manner, the
impression that Barry sent through his hands and into the body of
Cumberland a continual stream of nervous strength--an electric thing.
Nonsense, of course. And it was nonsense, also, to think that the huge
dog which lay staring up into the face of the master understood all this
affair much better than the practiced mind of the physician. Yet the
illusion held with Randall Byrne in spite of all his scepticism.
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