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again.
    So, sighing heavily, almost stumbling now, she fought the entire battle once more: cleansing the wound, burning the alum, staunching the blood, applying ergot, and praying to see the flow stop. He seemed to be rousing more often as the afternoon wore on. Each time he moved a limb, she poured her strength on him, holding him flat if need be, willing him to lie still, badgering him aloud, sweating with the effort, but wiping the sweat from his fevered body rather than from her own. Toward evening when he still hadn't gained consciousness, she gave up hoping for him to awaken fully enough to drink the beef tea and force-fed him again.
    Sometime later she was standing staring trancelike at his exposed white hip, counting the minutes since the bleeding had stopped, when Doc Dougherty's knock brought her from her reverie. "Come in." But she barely had the strength left to call out.
    Doc had had a tough day himself, but he took one look at her and demanded, "Miss Abigail, what in tarnation did you do to yourself?" She looked ghastly! Her eyes were red-rimmed and for a moment he thought she might start crying.
    "I never knew before how hard it is to save a life," she said hoarsely. Doc led her by the arm into her disastrous kitchen. She laughed a little madly as he forced her into a chair. "And now I know why your house looks the way it does, too."
    Rather than feel insulted, he snorted laughingly. She'd been initiated then, he thought, as we all must be at first.
    "You need a good dose of coffee, Miss Abigail, and a bigger dose of sleep."
    "The coffee I'll accept, but the sleep must wait until after he revives and I know he'll make it."
    Doc poured her a cup of coffee and left her to check the patients, but as he walked from the kitchen he saw Miss Abigail's back wilt against her chair and knew he was lucky it was she who'd offered to help.
    Yet, entering the room where the robber lay, he wondered again if she wasn't too delicate to handle wounds like this. At first he'd considered only her sense of propriety, but seeing her so whipped, he wondered if the physical strain wasn't too much for her.
    But one look at her handiwork and he marveled at her ingenuity and tenacity. What he found when he checked the wound genuinely surprised him. The man doesn't know how lucky he is that he ended up where he did, Doc thought. The wound looked good, the fever was low, no bleeding, no gangrene. She'd done as much as Doc himself could have.
    Upstairs, he said, "Mr. Melcher, I think you're in good hands with Miss Abigail dancing attendance on you. However, I thought I'd lend my meager medical assistance just the same."
    "Ah, Doctor Dougherty, I'm happy to see you." Melcher looked fit as a fiddle.
    "Foot giving you much pain?"
    "No more than I can handle. It throbs now and then, but the salve you gave Miss Abigail helps immensely."
    "Laudanum salve, my man. Laudanum salve applied by Miss Abigail—a very effective combination, don't you agree?"
    Melcher smiled. "She is wonderful, isn't she? I want to thank you for… well, I'm very happy I'm here in her house."
    "I didn't have much to do with it, Melcher. She volunteered! And even though she's being paid, I think she puts out more than the money will compensate her for. The two of you are a real handful for her."
    At the reminder of the other patient, Melcher's face soured.
    "Tell me… how is he?"

    "He's alive and not bleeding, and both facts seem to be more than believable. I don't know what Miss Abigail did for him, but whatever it was, it worked." Then, noting the expression on Melcher's face, Doc thumped the man's good leg. "Cheer up, my man! You won't need to be here under the same roof with the scoundrel too much longer. This toe is looking up. Shouldn't hold you up here for long at all."
    "Thank you," Melcher offered, but his face remained untouched by warmth as he said it.
    "My advice to you is to forget he's down there if it bothers you so much," Doc said, preparing to