The Huntress. Footner Hulbert
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own ends, showed a disposition to help Sam. Jack overawed him with a look.
"Come along," he commanded.
The girl showed no further concern in the matter. Sam, observing her, suddenly ceased to struggle.
Outside the door they released him. When the four of them were joined together, they paused for a moment to decide which direction they should take.
"That sand-bank at the mouth of the creek," suggested Jack.
The sound of a shot rang muffled in the cabin behind them.
For an instant they were stupefied. A strange joy lightened Sam's breast. Dropping their bundles, they ran back, and, flinging the door open, stood back warily, half expecting to be received with a fusillade.
The smell of gunpowder assailed their nostrils. The light of the fire revealed Husky's burly figure sprawling on his back, with his feet among the tin dishes on the hearth. The girl was not to be seen.
They cautiously ventured in. She was not behind the door. She could not have gone out by the door without their knowing it, for they had been within ten paces. Both windows were intact. The only possible place of concealment within the shack was the bed. A swift investigation proved that there was nothing in it or under it.
The old feeling of awe of the supernatural returned. They avoided each other's eyes. The figure on the floor stirred a little and groaned. A dark, wet stain was spreading on his shirt. Jack dropped to his knees beside him.
"Through the shoulder," he said to the others. "No vital organ."
"Can you hear me?" he asked of the wounded man.
"A she-devil!" muttered Husky. "A devil!"
"Where did she go?"
"I don't know. Everything turned black. A devil – had a gun in her dress! Speaks English, too. Understood every word!"
None of Husky's mates had any skill in surgery. Like men in the flush of their strength, they refused to harbour the thought of injury or disease, and had come to the wilderness ill provided.
Jack, lacking antiseptics or healing medicaments, bound up the shoulder roughly. They laid Husky on the bed and endeavoured to forget him. Jack, Shand, and Joe elected to sleep in the stable to escape the injured man's stertorous breathing and his groans. They took care to bar themselves in against the terrors of the night.
Sam was glad to see them go. Their endless and futile discussion of what had happened tried his temper.
In the morning Husky was feverish. His mates shrugged and left him to Sam. Their attitude toward the injured one was as naive as that of children or animals.
Sam had no love for the gross figure on the bed, who, he felt, had earned what he got. Nevertheless, he did what offices humanity suggested; washing the wound and redressing it; bringing ice from the lake shore to mitigate his fever. He had to smile at Husky's changed tone in his lucid moments.
"Do you think this will croak me?" he continually asked. "Lord, I ain't ready to die! I leave it to you, cook; shouldn't a man have some warning of his end? Lord, if I get over this I'll lead a different life! I swear I will! Lord, think of dying in a God-forsaken place like this without a parson to clear the track for you! It ain't fair to catch you like this. Not even a Bible in the outfit!"
"I have a Bible," said Sam grimly.
"Get it for me; there's a good fellow," begged Husky.
Sam did so. "Do you want me to read it to you?" he asked.
"No use," said Husky. "Couldn't never get the hang of it. But let me have it here in bed with me. That's something."
As the day wore on the patient grew worse, and the other men became more and more chary of approaching him. However, toward the end of the afternoon, a cold squall of rain drove them indoors in spite of themselves.
They squatted on the floor at the farthest possible distance from the bed and half-heartedly dealt the cards for euchre. Meanwhile Sam busied himself baking bread, trying to remember what he could of the girl's deft technique. He could think of her now with a pleasant warmth about the heart. She had redeemed her sex in his eyes.
Careless of whether he heard them, the men joked outrageously about Husky's condition. It was their way of hiding their helpless terror.
"Well, old Husk is bound for the heavenly shore, I guess," said Jack.
"We'll give him a bang-up funeral," suggested Joe. "Spill a little booze and carve a board to put at his head. It's the least we can do for a pal."
"When Husk gets to the golden gates," Jack went on, "if Peter tries to hold him up, he'll say, 'What is it worth to you, old man?'"
This well-known saying of their partner produced a subdued laugh all around.
Black Shand remarked in his curt way: "Husky wouldn't get along in heaven. Ain't got no ear for music."
"He'd be in trouble down below, too," said Jack. "He'd undertake to show the Old Boy himself how to build a fire."
Outside the pine branches thrashed wildly, and gusts of rain were flung against the panes of the little window above the players' heads. Water found its way through more than one place in the sod roof and dripped sullenly on the floor. From time to time the game shifted, seeking a dry spot.
On such a day the pioneers were keenly conscious of their isolation. The emptiness of the land seemed to press upon their breasts, hindering free breathing. Moreover, their nerves were still jangling as a result of the night's events.
Such was their situation when, without warning, the latch of the door clicked.
They froze in their card-playing attitudes, turning horrified eyes in the direction of the sound. The door opened inward, and a ghastly moment passed before they could see what was behind it. Then each man's breath escaped with a little sound of amazement and awe.
It was Bela.
CHAPTER VI
A FRESH SURPRISE
Raindrops sparkled like diamonds in Bela's dark hair and upon her glowing cheeks. She was, as ever, composed and inscrutable. In one swift glance around she took in the whole scene – the cardplayers under the window, Sam arrested at his pan of dough, and the injured man breathing hard upon the bed.
She went toward the latter with a noiseless, gliding motion.
"Mak' water hot," she said coolly over her shoulder to Sam. "Get clean rags for bandage."
Jack and his mates, hearing the English speech, glanced at each other meaningly. Nevertheless, speech humanized her, and they relaxed.
There was no leaping up of the unholy fires of the night before. They regarded her with great, new respect. They remained sitting motionless, absorbed in her every move, like the spectators of a play.
At the sound of her voice the injured man opened his eyes with a grunt. Seeing her, he rolled away as far as he could get on the bed, crying out in mingled pain and terror:
"Keep her away! Keep her away! Don't let her get me!"
Bela fell back with a scornful smile.
"Tell him I not hurt him," she said to Sam, who had gone to her. "Tell him I come to mak' him well."
Sam sought in vain to reassure Husky.
"I won't let her touch me!" the injured man cried. "She's a witch!"
"Let be," she said to Sam, shrugging. "I tell you w'at to do."
Under her direction Sam cut away his own rude bandage from Husky's shoulder and washed the wound. The bullet had gone cleanly through. Meanwhile Bela was macerating some leaves she had brought. She showed Sam how to apply the mass to the wound before rebandaging it. Husky strained away.
"Poison! Poison!" he cried. "Keep her away from me!"
"You crazy!" said Bela impatiently. "Look at me!"
She chewed some of the poultice and swallowed it before Husky's eyes.
"Are you afraid, too?" she asked