Regularly he administered the medicine he was giving her.
Sometimes she took it half asleep; again she gave him a smile that to the Harvester was the supreme thing of earth or Heaven.

Toward the end of the long vigil, in exhaustion he slipped to the floor, and laid his head on the side of the bed, and for a second his hand relaxed and he fell asleep.

The Girl awakened as his touch loosened and looking down she saw his huddled body.

A second later the Harvester awoke with a guilty start to find her fingers twisted in the shock of hair on the top of his head.
"Poor stranded Girl," he muttered.

"She's clinging to me for life, and you can stake all you are worth she's going to get it!" Then he gently relaxed her grip, gave her the last dose he felt necessary, yielded his place to Doctor Carey and staggered up the hill.
As the sun peeped over Medicine Woods he stretched himself between the two mounds under the oak, and for a few minutes his body was rent with the awful, torn sobbing of a strong man.