Part 11 (1/2)

She did not believe that he was wholly unconscious, for she had seen his eyelids tighten and his lips twitch several times, when she waiting for Swan. He had seemed to be in pain and to be trying to hide the fact from her. She felt that Swan knew it, else he would have talked of her dad, would at least have tried to rea.s.sure her. But it is difficult to speak of a person who hears what you are saying, and Swan was talking of everything, it seemed to her, except the man they were carrying.

She wondered if it were really true that Swan had sent a call through s.p.a.ce for a doctor; straightway she would call herself crazy for even considering for a moment its possibility. If he could do that--but of course he couldn't. He must just imagine it.

Many times Swan had her lower the stretcher to the ground, and would make a great show of rubbing his arms and easing his shoulder muscles.

Whenever Lorraine looked full into his face he would grin at her as though nothing was wrong, and when they came to a clear-running stream he emptied the water bottle, dipped up a little fresh water, added brandy, and lifted Brit's head very gently and gave him a drink. Brit opened his eyes and looked at Swan, and from him to Lorraine, but he did not say anything. He still had that tightened look around his mouth which spelled pain.

”Pretty quick now we get you fixed up good,” Swan told him cheerfully.

”One mile more is all, and we get the horses and I make a good bed for you.” He looked a signal, and Lorraine once more took up the stretcher.

Another mile seemed a long way, light though Swan had made the load for her. She thought once that he must have some clairvoyant power, because whenever she felt as if her arms were breaking, Swan would tell her to stop a minute.

”How do you know a doctor will come?” she asked Swan suddenly, when they were resting with the Thurman ranch in view half a mile below them.

Swan did not look at her directly, as had been his custom. She saw a darker shade of red creep up into his cheeks. ”My mother says she would send a doctor quick,” he replied hesitatingly. ”You will see.

It is because--your father he is not like other men in this country.

Your father is a good man. That is why a doctor comes.”

Lorraine looked at him strangely and stooped again to her burden. She did not speak again until they were pa.s.sing the Thurman fence where it ran up into the mouth of the canyon. A few horses were grazing there, the sun striking their sides with the sheen of satin. They stared curiously at the little procession, snorted and started to run, heads and tails held high. But one wheeled suddenly and came galloping toward them, stopped when he was quite close, ducked and went thundering past to the head of the field. Lorraine gave a sharp little scream and set down the stretcher with a lurch, staring after the horse wide-eyed, her face white.

”They do it for play,” Swan said rea.s.suringly. ”They don't hurt you.

The fence is between, and they don't hurt you anyway.”

”That horse with the white face--I saw it--and when the man struck it with his quirt it went past me, running like that and dragging--_oh-h!_” She leaned against the bluff side, her face covered with her two palms.

Swan glanced down at Brit, saw that his eyes were closed, ducked his head from under the looped rope and went to Lorraine.

”The man that struck that horse--do you know that man?” he asked, all the good nature gone from his voice.

”No--I don't know--I saw him twice, by the lightning flashes. He shot--and then I saw him----” She stopped abruptly, stood for a minute longer with her eyes covered, then dropped her hands limply to her sides. But when the horse came circling back with a great flourish, she s.h.i.+vered and her hands closed into the fists of a fighter.

”Are you a Sawtooth man?” she demanded suddenly, looking up at Swan defiantly. ”It was a nightmare. I--I dreamed once about a horse--like that.”

Swan's wide-open eyes softened a little. ”The Sawtooth calls me that d.a.m.n Swede on Bear Top,” he explained. ”I took a homestead up there and some day they will want to buy my place or they will want to make a fight with me to get the water. Could you know that man again?”

”Raine!” Brit's voice held a warning, and Lorraine s.h.i.+vered again as she turned toward him. ”Raine, you----”

He closed his eyes again, and she could get no further speech from him.

But she thought she understood. He did not want her to talk about Fred Thurman. She went to her end of the stretcher and waited there while Swan put the rope over his head. They went on, Lorraine walking with her head averted, trying not to see the blaze-faced roan, trying to shut out the memory of him das.h.i.+ng past her with his terrible burden, that night.

Swan did not speak of the matter again. With Lorraine's a.s.sistance he carried Brit into Thurman's cabin, laid him, stretcher and all, on the bed and hurried out to catch and harness the team of work horses.

Lorraine waited beside her father, helpless and miserable. There was nothing to do but wait, yet waiting seemed to her the one thing she could not do.

”Raine!” Brit's voice was very weak, but Lorraine jumped as though a trumpet had bellowed suddenly in her ear. ”Swan--he's all right. But don't go telling--all yuh know and some besides. He ain't--Sawtooth, but--he might let out----”

”I know. I won't, dad. It was that horse----”

Brit turned his face to the wall as if no more was to be said on the subject. Lorraine wandered around the cabin, which was no larger than her father's place. The rooms were scrupulously clean--neater than the Quirt, she observed guiltily. Not one article, however small and unimportant, seemed to be out of its place, and the floors of both rooms were scrubbed whiter than any floors she had ever seen. Swan's housekeeping qualities made her ashamed of her own imperfections; and when, thinking that Swan must be hungry and that the least she could do was to set out food for him, she opened the cupboard, she had a swift, embarra.s.sed vision of her own culinary imperfections. She could cook better food than her dad had been content to eat and to set before others, but Swan's bread was a triumph in sour dough. Biscuits tall and light as bread can be she found, covered neatly with a cloth.