Westerfelt Part 9

"I'll pay you for this, Bale Warlick," he groaned in pain, but he still held to the knife.

"Let go that knife," thundered the sheriff. "Let it a-loose, I tell you, or I'll mash your skull!"

"Not while I hold 'im, Bale," said the bar-keeper, sullenly. "Law or no law, I won't he'p beat no man 'at's down!"

"Let go that knife!" The sheriff spoke the last word almost in a scream, and he beat Wambush's knuckles so furiously that the knife fell to the ground.

He then pinned Toot's legs to the earth with his knees, and held the knife up to a man in the crowd.

"Keep it jest like it is fur evidence," he panted. "Don't shet it up or tetch the blade."

Disarmed, Wambush seemed suddenly overcome with fear. He allowed the sheriff to jerk him to his feet, and walked pa.s.sively between the three men across the street to the stone jail.

Westerfelt stood alone on the sidewalk. Everybody went to see Wambush locked up except Harriet and her mother. They instantly came out to Westerfelt. Harriet picked up a folded piece of letter paper.

"Did you drop this?" she asked.

He did not reply, but took the paper absently and thrust it into his coat pocket. It had fallen from Wambush's pocket. He was very white and leaned heavily against a sycamore-tree.

"Oh, he's cut your coat; look!" Harriet cried.

Still he did not speak. He looked down at the slit in the cloth and raised his hand towards it, but his arm fell limply and he swayed from side to side.

"Are you hurt?" asked Mrs. Floyd, anxiously.

"I think not," he said; "but maybe I am, a little."

Harriet opened his coat and screamed, "Oh, mother, he's cut! Look at the blood!"

He tried to b.u.t.ton his coat, but could not use his fingers. "Only a scratch," he said.

"But your clothes are wet with blood," Harriet insisted, as she pointed to his trousers.

He stooped and felt them. They were damp and heavy. Then he raised his heel in his right boot, and let it down again.

"It's full," he said, with a sickly smile. "I reckon I _have_ lost some blood. Why--why, I didn't feel it."

Martin Worthy, the storekeeper, ran across from the jail ahead of the others. Hearing Westerfelt's remark, he cried:

"My Lord! you must go inside an' lie down; fix a place, Miss Harriet, an' send fer a doctor, quick!"

Harriet ran into the house, and Mrs. Floyd and Worthy supported Westerfelt between them into a room adjoining the parlor. They made him lie on a bed, and Worthy opened his waistcoat and s.h.i.+rt.

"Good gracious, it's runnin' like a wet-weather spring," he said.

"Have you sent fer a doctor?" he asked as Harriet came in.

"Yes; Dr. Lash, but he may not be at his office."

"Send for Dr. Wells," he ordered a man at the door. "That's right," he added to Harriet, who had knelt by the bed and was holding the lips of the wound together, "keep the cut closed as well as you kin! I'll go tell 'im to use my hoss."

As he went out there was a clatter of feet on the veranda. The people were returning from the jail. Westerfelt opened his eyes and looked towards the door.

"They'll crowd in here," said Harriet to her mother. "Shut the door; don't let anybody in except Mr. Bradley."

Mrs. Floyd closed the door in the face of the crowd, asking them to go outside, but they remained in the hall, silent and awed, waiting for news of the wounded man. Mrs. Floyd admitted Luke Bradley.

"My heavens, John, I had no idea he got such a clean sweep at you!" he said, as he approached the bed. "Ef I'd a-knowed this I'd 'a' killed the dirty scamp!"

"I'm all right," replied Westerfelt; "just a little loss of blood."

But his voice was faint and his eyelids drooped despite his effort to keep them open. Worthy rapped at the door and was admitted.

"Doc Lash has rid out to Widow Treadwell's," he announced. "He's been sent fer, an' ort ter git heer before long. It'll take a hour to git Wells, even ef he's at home."

Harriet Floyd glanced at her mother when she heard this. Her knees ached and her fingers felt stiff and numb, but she dared not stir.

Once Westerfelt opened his eyes and looked down at her.

"Do I hurt you?" she asked, softly.

"Not a bit." He smiled, and his eyes lingered on her face till their lids dropped over them.

Chapter VII

Dr. Lash came a little earlier than he was expected. The wound was not really a fatal one, he said, but if Miss Harriet had not been so attentive and skilful in keeping the cut closed, the man would have bled to death.

Westerfelt dropped to sleep, and when he awoke it was night. A lamp, the light of which was softened by a pink shade, stood on a sewing-machine near the fireplace. At first he could not recall what had happened nor where he was, and he felt very weak and sleepy. After awhile, however, he became conscious of the fact that he was not alone.

A slight figure was moving silently about the room, now at the fireplace, again at a table where some lint, bandages, and phials had been left. The figure approached his bed cautiously. It was Harriet Floyd. When she saw that he was awake, she started to move away, but he detained her.

"I'm a lot of trouble for a new boarder," he said, smiling. "This is my first day, and yet I've turned your house into a fortification and a hospital."

"You are not a bit of trouble; the doctor said let you sleep as much as possible."

"I don't need sleep; I've been hurt worse than this before."

She put her hand on his brow. "It'll make you feverish to talk, Mr.

Westerfelt; go to sleep."

"Did they jail Wambush?"

"Yes."

"Toughest customer I ever tackled." He laughed, dryly.

She made no reply. She went to the fire and began stirring the contents of a three-legged pot on the coals. To see her better, he turned over on his side. The bed slats creaked.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, running to him, "you'll break the st.i.tches, and bleed again. Don't move that way."