CHAPTER XXV

A man may look dead, and yet by no means be dead; a man may be very close to the borderland of death, and yet, if he has not actually crossed, may be dragged back by the strong hands of love. Bud Childers’s bullet had not found Allston’s heart. The shot had gone high and a little wild. Striking to the right of his head, it had cut a gash across his temple--a gash which had been covered as he fell. But the impact of the bullet against his skull had stunned him and dropped him in his tracks. That was his good fortune, for otherwise a second shot, better directed, would most certainly have followed.

Allston had fallen. The curtain had been rung down. For all he knew it was final. And yet in the course of time the curtain began to rise again. Light--the emblem of life--filtered through his eyes and made itself a conscious fact in his half-paralyzed brain. That was all he was aware of at first--just light; a pale, cold light like that of dawn. It was quite meaningless and without warmth. It roused no emotions in him; little interest. It just was; nothing more.

Yet because it was, it indicated life. It stood for continuation instead of the end. It meant another day. It meant being. It meant--

Something more was trying to get through to that numbed brain of his. Another sense was fluttering to life--sound. He heard a far-off noise. Then, it seemed close to his ear. It was whispering a familiar name. It was his name.

“Ned,” he heard. And then once more, “Ned.”

It roused him to effort. He tried to move his arm. Quickly following this, he began to feel; something warm was resting on his forehead smoothing back his hair. Something still warmer brushed his cold lips. Then, like a film unfolding its secrets in a dark room, his mind began to clear. Objects became more concrete. They stood for something. This was a woman bending over him. Still somewhat hazy he tried to raise his head. As he did so he heard a sharp cry. The ugly wound stood revealed.

“Ned,” came the trembling voice. “Lie still. I--I must get water.”

Then he knew. That was Wilmer Howe. That was Wilmer Howe. They were in the cove where he had stopped to fish for trout. No, there was something wrong about that. This was a clearing. He rose to one elbow. His hair and cheek felt sticky, and he put up his hand. He brought it back crimsoned. He saw the shack beyond and the whole story flashed before him.

His head sank to the ground. He seemed to be weak. Bud had got him when he started to run from the door. But how happened it that Wilmer had taken the place of Roxie? This was strange--very strange. It was not easy to think about anything very long at a time.

He heard footsteps running towards him. Again he tried to sit up, but before he could do that Wilmer was by his side. She was holding a tin dipper to his lips. He drank thirstily. It was very refreshing--this clear, ice-cold spring water. She poured a little into the palm of her hand and bathed his forehead and face. He struggled again to sit up and, with her help, succeeded. He was facing the log shack. His hand went back to his pocket.

“Where--where’s my gun?” he demanded.

Wilmer had thought of themselves as alone. Both Bud and Roxie had been eliminated from her thoughts. Now she raised her eyes and glanced about.

Allston caught sight of his automatic on the ground a few feet away. He tried to reach it and failed. Following his outstretched arm, she saw it too, and, picking it up gingerly, handed it to him. The feel of it in his fingers roused him to action in spite of his weakness. He squinted towards the shack.

“Lord!” he said. “You shouldn’t be here, Wilmer. Childers may--may be in there. He may be in the woods.”

He wanted to make his feet now. He tried and failed.

“What’s the matter with my darned legs?” he stammered petulantly.

“You’ve been hurt,” she explained gently. “Please--please to sit still.”

“But that devil--it isn’t safe for you here, I tell you.”

“You think he may be inside?”

“He might be. Where’s Roxie?”

“I--I haven’t seen any one but--but you.”

“Then--can’t you help me stand up?”

“It’s better for you not to move.”

“I’ve got to get in there and--find out.”

The girl’s face was very white and tense. She was kneeling by his side, but she suddenly rose. Then she took the gun from his weak fingers.

“I’ll see!” she exclaimed.

Before he could catch her skirts she was moving across the few yards of clear space to the door. He called after her. With every ounce of strength left in him he tried to follow, but apparently he had lost a good deal of blood. His legs were like limp straws. Helpless he saw her disappear through the door. She was not gone long, but it seemed an eternity before she came out again.

“The house is empty,” she said.

“Thank God. If it hadn’t been--”

“But it is. And if--can you get across there, leaning on me?”

The color was returning to his cheeks; the light to his eyes.

“Leaning on you,” he repeated slowly, “I--I think I could get anywhere.”

“Then--”

She bent down and placed an arm beneath his shoulder. As he moved she lifted and so got him, tottering, to his feet. He stood so for a moment with his arm over her frail shoulder. He did not seem to wish to move farther.

“I can build a fire,” she ran on. “It’s cold out here. You can walk a little?”

Then he said, as though to himself:

“You oughtn’t to be here.”

He tried to keep his weight from her as much as possible, but actually he did lean heavily. Even so her shoulders did not sag. Frail they looked--fit only for the burden of lace shawls--but they did not sag. His left arm was over them and her right arm around his waist supporting him. He felt the tight, steady grip of it. Even when he paused, this did not relax.

So he came back over that threshold which so brief a time ago he had crossed in the other direction; so he came back into that room where he had waited through the night. There was the corner where he had sat with Roxie. The tumbled blankets still lay on the floor. They cried out to him. They brought her name to his lips.

“Where’s Roxie?”

“Steady,” Wilmer answered. “Steady until we get to the chair.”

She led him to a chair before the dead hearth. He slumped down wearily.

“She’s gone,” he said. “Bud must have got her.”

“She was here, then?”

“Here with Bud Childers.”

“But why--”

“Because the brute bullied her into coming. He threatened to get me--if she didn’t come.”

“Oh!” she cried. “And then?”

“I got _him_. I had him fair--tied hand and foot. But the beggar squirmed loose.”

“And then?”

“Roxie wouldn’t leave for fear of him.”

“Then?”

“I took a chance--this morning. He was waiting behind the spring-house.”

She shuddered at that.

“But she--she may have escaped.”

“Yes. Only--women are queer,” he answered in a voice scarcely audible.

Wilmer turned her head and smiled a little--to herself. Roxie was gone and Bud was gone. But she was here and Ned Allston was here. And he was helpless--helpless enough to be dependent on her. Much of her fear had vanished. It was evident now that his wound, however painful, was not serious. The thing to do was to make him warm and comfortable until help arrived. That gave her an hour--perhaps two hours.

She started towards the door. His eyes were upon her.

“Where you going?” he demanded.

“I must kindle a fire.”

He staggered to his feet.

“That’s my job,” he said.

She hurried to his chair.

“You’d help most if you’d sit still,” she answered. “You only interrupt.”

She waited until he reseated himself.

“I don’t seem to have much strength,” he muttered.

“And I have more than I ever had,” she answered. “So you see it _ought_ to be my job.”

Women are queer, Allston had said. That is a very loose and very general statement, but there may be something in it. At any rate, it served as an explanation, as good as any, perhaps, of why Wilmer found the unfamiliar tasks she now went about not only congenial, but distinctly exhilarating--even mentally stimulating. If she had ever kindled a fire, it was so long ago she had forgotten about it. And she would have been inclined to argue that it was so humbly simple an act that it was not worth remembering, anyway. It made no heavy call upon the intellect. In and of itself it was a trivial duty.

And yet, as she went to look for wood, she felt a pride in her mission out of all proportion to the effort. She was to build a fire--for him. She must make him warm. She must heat water and bathe his wound. If she could find provisions in the shack, she must prepare something for him to eat--if only a cup of tea or coffee. She must build up his strength.

_His_ strength--the strength of the man she loved. She must give him some of her own strength and in this indirect way alone was that at the moment possible. It was too indirect to satisfy her--too simple. Could she have opened her veins into his veins, that would have seemed too simple. Perhaps this new need could never be satisfied by any one act--only by a succession of acts extending without limit through his life. It was as big as that.

But at any rate here was something--something definite and tangible calling for effort if only the picking up of chips. The very simplicity of the task hallowed it. The disciples grasped eagerly at the opportunity to express their great love through the anointing of His feet.

In the rear of the shack Wilmer found a woodpile and a dulled and rusty axe. Picking up this, she battered away at some of the driest pine until she had broken it into splinters. She was surprised at the power in her arms and back. She had never handled anything as heavy as this axe in her life, and yet she raised it easily and brought it down upon the stubborn dried limbs with sufficient force to accomplish her object. They broke in spite of their resistance. There is always satisfaction in victory even in so primitive a conflict as this. But back of this there was more; she was doing this for her man, even as Roxie might have done. She was using her muscles and hands for him. She was catering to his well-being and comfort.

With cheeks grown crimson by the effort, she stopped and gathered an armful of the splinters, hugging them close to her bosom, careless of what they did to her gown. Clothes had become unimportant--as unimportant as the appearance of her hands and hair. She was not concerned with how she looked, but wholly with what she had to do. If her long, tense walk up here had tired her, she did not feel it. She came back through the door proudly, smiling over her load.

“Lordy!” exclaimed Allston. “But you shouldn’t be doing that. You make me feel like a limp cad.”

She lowered her burden to the side of the hearth. Then dropping to her knees she picked out the smaller pieces and piled them criss-cross in the ashes, adding larger pieces on top.

Allston watched her, fascinated, in spite of his discomfort. She may have looked at odd times more beautiful than now, but never since he had known her. For all her beauty was of herself. Her hair, brown and silken, was unaided by deft fingers. It was so loosely fastened that it seemed as though at any moment it might fall over her shoulders. He hoped and prayed that it might. He wished to see it so--all of it in its full glory. Had he been a little nearer he would have been tempted to touch it with his fingers.

Her fine features were quite unrestrained. They were subject to no conscious control. And so they appeared softened to the point of tenderness. Her face was half turned from him, but he saw an expression about her mouth of gladness, of eager, childlike interest. Innocent as it was, it bred wild thoughts in him. He wanted those lips nearer. He wanted them within reach of his own lips. And yet, before he would have leaned forward one inch towards them, he would have stopped himself with his own automatic. The wonder of her; but the sacredness of her!

She turned with outstretched hand.

“You have a match?” she asked.

That was the most he could give her--a match. He fumbled in his pocket, found one, and extended his own hand towards her. It was not as steady as it should have been. It was still less steady as in taking it the tips of her fingers touched him. There were kisses in them. He held his breath. If only that match went out so that he could hand her another.

But she was very careful. She nursed the tiny flame until it burned steadily and then applied it to the smaller twigs. They caught fire and licked up to the larger twigs; sprang from those to the dry splinters until no shadow of hope was left him. The hearth came to life like a roused sleeper. He felt the heat at once. It was welcome.

And she held out her hands towards the dancing golden flames. She had taken the first step towards making this room habitable; the first step towards making it a home. She had brought into it heat and light.

With glowing face she turned towards Allston.

“A fire is such a friendly thing,” she exclaimed.

“That fire represents more than friendship,” he answered.

She did not take up the argument. She was not interested in words. She had still a great many things to do.

She went out into Bud’s kitchen to forage. She did not discover much, but she did find a little coffee in the bottom of a can, and sugar and half a loaf of dry bread. That was enough. It was food and hot drink.

There was no coffee-pot, for Bud had carried that off with him, but she found a couple of tins that were whole and clean. She brought her treasures back and laid them at his feet.

“Here’s a bit of luck,” she said.

Every time she spoke, her words seemed curiously inadequate to Allston. This was not a bit of luck, but stupendous good fortune. To drink coffee of her brewing and eat bread of her finding promised a meal to be remembered. It was an event worth all it had cost. It was going to keep her busy near him for the next half-hour.

She made another journey to the spring-house and filled her pails. She brought them back and placed them close to the flames near the dog-irons. She piled on more wood and bade him see that the water did not boil over.

“I must find some clean linen if there is any. That cut--”

He had almost forgotten about the cut. It had ceased bleeding, but it was a matted ugly blotch on his head.

“It can wait, can’t it, until I get to the doctor?”

“No,” she replied.

Where she secured the clean white strips of cotton with which she returned, Allston never knew. The torn hem of a ruffled petticoat left behind in the bedroom might have told him had he ever seen it. But he never did. He began to question her, but some instinct warned him that this evidently was none of his business.

He did not seem to have much business of any sort here now. He found himself a good deal under orders--gentle orders, to be sure, but none the less to be regarded seriously. And, as he remembered, this was one of the things he had looked forward to escaping just as soon as he left the army. He had chafed under them;--not openly, because he respected the necessity of them, but inwardly, because they went against the grain. As a free-born American citizen of Southern ancestry and independent means he had, until the war, come pretty near to doing just about as he liked without dictation of any sort. Once he was out of kilts no one had interfered to any extent with the management of his everyday life.

Now this young woman, approaching him with a pail of lukewarm water, tucked a towel around his neck and commanded him to lean his head back. He did so when he would much have preferred not. Then she proceeded to sop a wet rag against the wound left by Bud Childers’s bullet. It was distinctly an unpleasant process. It hurt more or less, and the water trickled down his neck. Besides, he felt that this was a distasteful duty which did not come within her province, but that of a surgeon. He offered that argument, but she kept on.

“I’m afraid I’m not much of a nurse, but I’m sure this ought to be done,” she said.

“You’re a wonderful nurse,” he assured her.

“I’m trying not to hurt.”

“It hurts you more than it does me. It’s such a messy thing to bother with.”

“If he had come an eighth of an inch nearer,” she trembled.

“I’m surprised he didn’t. I thought he was a better shot.”

“Oh, it was wicked of him!”

“It was more or less human. You see, he didn’t understand.”

“He’s more like a savage than a man.”

“And yet it’s so easy for any of us to misunderstand,” he said.

She was still sopping, rinsing frequently the carmine from the rag. It was coloring the water in the pail like red pigment.

“He wanted Roxie as a beast wants his prey. But Roxie--”

“Was worth fighting for,” he broke in.

“Why did she go with him? She could have roused the house.”

“Yes,” he answered slowly. “She could have done that--and she didn’t. Women _are_ queer.”

He had thought for a moment that he could tell this woman beside him the whole story, but he found his lips sealed. After all this was not his story; it was Roxie’s. It was of too sacred a nature for him to reveal. He felt as though he had overheard something not intended for his ears; the holy revelations a woman makes only to herself. The part of a gentleman was to forget them; to treat them as though they had never been. In these last few minutes he had forgotten even the girl herself. He realized it with a start.

“Where is she?” he demanded. “If Childers took her off--”

“Even he couldn’t do that against her will,” said Wilmer. “Please to be quiet.”

“You think that?”

“You don’t know those girls.”

“I--I guess you’re right,” he admitted.

“It’s probable she escaped into the woods. If she didn’t--”

“The woods,” he nodded. “She had the other door. She had a fair chance if she kept her head.”

“And she knew the man through and through.”

“The devil! He gnawed through those ropes like a rat.”

The woman by his side grew pale.

“It’s a miracle you’re alive,” she said.

“I don’t know. I don’t know.”

The old familiar phrase steadied her in one way and unsteadied her in another. It sent her thoughts back for a moment to the evening before. He did not know--any more than he knew then. But she--how much she had come to know in these last few hours! And yet not by the slightest token must she let him know that she knew. She must maintain a stricter guard over herself than ever before. She must be careful of her eyes, her speech, her hands--especially her hands. Lightly they caressed the cut over his temple, but only in the course of her duty. And his tousled hair was so near her now.

A moment later, in the course of duty, she found a better opportunity. She wound strips of white bandage around and around his head, her fingers brushing his head--ever so gently, ever so lovingly, in the course of duty.

And he, sitting very quiet, his eyes closed, felt them like kisses--ashamed at the thought. He did not know. Lord! he did not know even then--and might never know.

The coffee began to boil. She left his side and poured some of the hot brew into a tin dipper and ordered him to drink it. After the first sip it is doubtful if he would have drunk it except under orders. She had sweetened it liberally but it was a muddy concoction.

She gave him bits of the stale bread and ordered him to eat them. He obeyed--as smartly as though it were an order of the day.

Quite without resentment, too.

“Aren’t you going to join me?” he asked.

She tried a little of the coffee and made up a wry face.

“It isn’t very nice,” she admitted.

He was about to agree with that when she added quickly:

“But it’s good for you.”

So he took his medicine--to the last drop.

Up to this time she had been very busy. Now, after going out and getting another armful of wood, there seemed to be nothing to do but wait. He was too weak to walk and she did not dare to leave him even long enough to go back for help to one of those neighboring houses she had passed below.

She had to wait--facing him. That is a difficult task--when one has a secret trembling in the eyes, on the lips, and on the tips of the fingers.