Westerfelt Part 10

He raised the blanket and looked down at his wound.

"I reckon they are holding all right, though I _did_ feel a little twinge."

"You have not had any dinner or supper," she went on. "Dr. Lash said if you wanted anything I might give you some gruel and milk. I've made it, and it is keeping warm at the fire. Will you take some?"

"No, I thank you; I can wait till breakfast. Then I'll set up at the table and eat a square meal; somehow, I'm not hungry. Wambush objected mightily to being jailed, didn't he?"

"You ought not to wait till breakfast," she said, looking at the fire; "you'd better let me give you some of this gruel."

"All right; you are the doctor."

She dipped up some of the gruel in a bowl, and, adding some milk to it, came back to him. But she was confronted by a difficulty. He could not eat gruel and milk from a spoon while lying on his back. He saw this, and put his hands on either side of him and started to sit up.

"Oh, don't!" she cried, setting the bowl on the floor and gently pus.h.i.+ng him back on his pillow; "you must not!"

He laughed. "Just like a woman. You surely don't think I'm going to lie here for a week, like a sick cat, for such a little scratch. I've lost some blood, that's all." And before she could prevent it, he had drawn himself up and was smiling broadly.

"I can't look after sick folks," she said, in despair. "The doctor will blame me."

"I heard him say if you hadn't held my cut so well I'd have bled to death."

"Anybody else could have done it."

"n.o.body else didn't."

"Do you want the gruel? Take it quick, and lie down again; you'll lose strength sitting up."

"You'll have to feed me," he said, opening his mouth. "I'm too blamed weak to sit up without propping with my hands, and they don't seem very good supports. Look how that one is wobbling."

She sat down on the edge of the bed, and without a word placed the bowl in her lap and her arm round him. Then neither spoke as she filled the spoon and held it to his lips. She felt him trying to steady his arms to keep his weight from her.

"It's really good," he said, as she filled the spoon the second time, "I had no idea I was so hungry; you say you made it?"

"Yes; there now, I'll have to wipe your chin; you ought not to talk when you are eating."

For several minutes neither spoke. He finished the bowl of gruel and lay down again.

"I feel as mean as a dog," he said, as she rose and drew the cover over him; "here I am being nursed by the very fellow's sweetheart I tried my level best to do up."

She turned and placed the bowl on the table, and then went to the fire.

"I heard you were his girl last night," he went on. "Well, I'm glad I didn't kill him. I wouldn't have tried in anything but self-defence, for even if he did use a gun and knife, when I had none, he's got bulldog pluck, and plenty of it. Do you know, I felt like mas.h.i.+ng the head of that sheriff for beating him like he did."

She sat down before the fire, but soon rose again. "If I stay here,"

she said, abruptly, and rather sharply, "you'll keep talking, and not sleep at all. I'm going into the next room--the parlor. If you want anything, call me and I'll come."

A few minutes after she left him he fell asleep. She put a piece of wood on the fire in the next room and sat down before it. She had left the door of his room ajar, and a ray of light from his lamp fell across the dark carpet and dimly illuminated the room. The hours pa.s.sed slowly. No one in the house was astir. No sound came from the outside save the dismal barking of a dog down the road. She was fatigued and almost asleep, when she was suddenly roused by a far-off shout.

"Whoopee! Whoopee!"

It seemed to come from the road leading down from the loftiest mountain peak. She held her breath and listened.

"Whoopee! Whoopee!" It was nearer. Then she heard the steady tramp of horses' hoofs. She rose and went to the window, moving softly, that her ear might not lose any of the sounds. She raised the window cautiously and looked out. The moon was s.h.i.+ning brightly, and down the street beyond the livery-stable she saw a body of hors.e.m.e.n.

"Great Heavens!" she exclaimed; "it's the 'Whitecaps'!"

She drew back behind the curtains as the hors.e.m.e.n rode up to the hotel and stopped. There were twenty or more, and each wore a white cap, a white mask, and a white sheet over the body.

"Thar's whar the scrimmage tuck place," explained some one in a m.u.f.fled voice, and a white figure pointed to the spot where Westerfelt and Wambush had fought. "We must hurry an' take 'im out, an' have it over."

Harriet Floyd heard some one breathing behind her. It was Westerfelt.

His elbow touched her as he leaned towards the window and peered out.

"Oh, it's you!" she cried. "Go back to bed, you--"

He did not seem to hear her. The moonlight fell on his face. It was ghastly pale. He suddenly drew back beside her to keep from being observed by the men outside. His lips moved, but they made no sound.

"Go back to bed," she repeated. She put out her hand and touched him, but she did not look at him, being unable to resist the fascination of the sight in the street.

"What do they want?" he whispered. He put his hand on an old-fas.h.i.+oned what-not behind him, and the sh.e.l.ls and ornaments on it began to rattle.

"I don't know," she said; "don't let 'em see you; you couldn't do anything against so many. They are a band sworn to protect one another."

"His friends?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Ah, I see." He glanced at the two doors, one opening into the hall, the other into his room, and then he swayed and clutched the curtain.

She caught his arm and braced him up. "Oh, you _must_ go lie down; you'll--"

A noise outside drew her back to the window. The band was crossing the street to the jail.

"What are they going to do?" He steadied himself, resting his hand on her shoulder, and looked through a pane above her head.

"To take Toot out."

"An' then he'll lead them, won't he?"

"I don't know! I reckon so--oh, I can't tell!" She faced him for an instant, a look of helpless indecision in her eyes; then she turned again to the window.

"I'll go slip on my coat," he said. "I--I'm cold. I'd better get ready. You see, he may want to--call me out. I wish I had a gun--or something."

She made no answer, and he went into his room. He turned up the lamp, but quickly lowered it again. He found his coat on a chair and put it on. He wondered if he were actually afraid. Surely he had never felt so before; perhaps his mind was not right--his wound and all his mental trouble had affected his nerves, and then a genuine thrill of horror went over him. Might not this be the particular form of punishment Providence had singled out for the murderer of Sally Dawson--might it not be the grewsome, belated answer to her mother's prayer?

Just then Harriet entered the room softly and turned his light down still lower.

"Stay back here," she said, her tone almost a command.