Bruce of the Circle A Part 3

"It's a tourniquet you want," she broke in.

He looked up at her again.

"Tourniquet.... Tourniquet," he repeated, to fix the new word in his mind. "Yes, that's what I want: to shut off the blood."

She folded the towel and brought the stick. From her audible breathing Bayard knew that she was excited, but, otherwise, she had ceased to give indication of the fact.

"Loop it around and tie a knot," he said.

"Is that right?" she asked, in a voice that was too calm, too well controlled for the circ.u.mstances.

"Yes, it's all right, Miss. How about you?"--a twinkle in his eye. "If this ... if you don't think you can stand it to fuss with him--" he began, but she cut him off with a look that contained something of a quality of rea.s.surance, but which was more obviously a rebuff.

"I said I could help you. Why do you keep doubting me?"

"I don't; I'm tryin' to be careful of your feelings,"--averting his eyes that she might not see the quick fire of appreciation in them. "Will you tighten it with that stick, now, Miss?"

The man on the bed breathed loudly, uncouthly, with now and then a short, sharp moan. The sour smell of stale liquor was about him; the arm and hand that had been washed were the only clean parts of his body.

"Now you twist it," Bayard said, when she was ready, although he could have done it easily with his free hand.

She grasped the stick with determination and, as she turned it quickly to take up the slack in the loop, Bayard leaned back, part of his weight on the elbow which kept the legs of the unconscious man from thres.h.i.+ng too violently as the contrivance shut down on his arm. His attention, however, was not for their patient; it was centered on the girl's hands as they manipulated stick and towel. They were the smallest hands, the trimmest, he had ever seen. The fingers were incredibly fine-boned and about them was a nicety, a finish, that was beyond his experience; yet, they were not weak hands; rather, competent looking. He watched their quick play, the spring of the tendons in her white wrist and, with a new interest, detected a smooth white mark about the third finger of her left hand where a ring had been. He looked into her intent face again, wondering what sort of ring that had been and why it was no longer there; then, forgot all about it in seeing the tight line of her mouth and finding delight in the splendid curve of her chin.

"You hate to do it," he thought, "but you're goin' to see it through!"

"There!" she said, under her breath. "Is that tight enough?"

He looked quickly away from her face to the wound and released the pressure of his thumb.

"Not quite. It oozes a little."

He liked the manner in which she moved her head forward to indicate her resolve, when she forced the cloth even more tightly about the arm. The injured man cried aloud and sought to roll over, and Bayard saw the girl's mouth set in a firmer cast, but in other ways she bore herself as if there had been no sound or movement to frighten or disturb her.

"That'll do," he told her, watching the result of the pressure carefully. "Now, would you tear that pillow slip into strips wide enough for a bandage?" She shook the pillow from the casing. "That'll tickle Uncle, downstairs," he added. "It's worth two bits, but he can charge me a dollar for it."

She did not appear to hear this last; just went on tearing strips with hands that trembled ever so little and his gray eyes lighted with a peculiar fire. Weakness was present in her, the weakness of inexperience, brought on by the sight of blood, the presence of a strange man of a strange type, the proximity of that muttering, filthy figure with his face shrouded from her; but, behind that weakness, was an inherent strength, a determination that made her struggle with all her faculties to hide its evidences; and that courage was the quality which Bayard had sought in her. Only, he could not then appreciate its true proportions.

"Is this enough?" she asked.

"Plenty. I can manage alone now, if--"

"But I might as well help you through with this!"

She had again detected his doubt of her, discerned his motive in giving her an avenue of graceful escape from the unpleasant situation; she thought that he still mistrusted her stamina and her stubborn refusal to give way to any weakness set the words on her lips to cut him short.

"Well, if you want to," he said, soberly, "you can keep this thing tight, while I wash this hole out an' bind it up.... I wouldn't look at it, if I was you; you ain't used to it, you know."

He looked her in the eye, on that last advice, for a moment. She understood fully and, as she took the stick in her hand to keep the blood flow checked, she averted her face. For a breath he looked at the stray little hairs about the depression at the back of her neck. Then, to his work.

He was gentle in cleansing the wound, but he could not touch the raw flesh without giving pain and still accomplish his end, and, on the first pressure of his fingers, the man writhed and twitched and jerked at the arm, drawing his knees up spasmodically.

"I'll have to set on him, Miss," Bayard said.

He did so, straddling the man's thighs and leaning to the right, close against the woman's stooping body. He grasped the cold wrist with one hand and washed the jagged hurt quickly, thoroughly. The man he held protested inarticulately and struggled to move about. Once, the towel that hid his face was thrown off and Bayard replaced it, glad that the girl's back had been turned so she did not see.

It was the crude, cruel surgery of the frontier and once, towards the end, the tortured man lifted his thick, scarcely human voice in a cursing phrase and Bayard, glancing sharply at the woman, murmured,

"I beg your pardon, Miss ... for him."

"That's not necessary," she answered, and her whisper was thin, weak.

"You ain't goin' to faint, are you?" he asked, in quick apprehension, ceasing his work to peer anxiously at her.

"No.... No, but hurry, please; it is very unpleasant."

He nodded his head in a.s.sent and began the bandaging, hurriedly. He made the strips of cloth secure with deft movements and then said,

"There, Miss, it's all over!"

She straightened and turned from him and put a hand quickly to her forehead, drew a deep breath as of exasperation and moved an uncertain step or two toward the door.

"All right," she said, with a half laugh, stopping and turning about.

"I was afraid ... you see! I'm not accustomed...."

Bayard removed his weight from the other man and sat again on the edge of the bed.

"Lots of men, men out here in this country, would have felt the same way ... only worse," he said, rea.s.suringly. "It takes lots of sand to fuss with blood an' man meat until you get used to it. You've got the sand, Miss, an' I sure appreciate what you've done. He will, too."

She turned to meet his gaze and he saw that her face was colorless and strained, but she smiled and asked,

"I couldn't do less, could I?"

"You couldn't do more," he said, staring hard at her, giving the impression that his mind was not on what he was saying. "More for me or more for ... a carca.s.s like that." A tremor of anger was in his voice, and resentment showed in his expression as he turned to look at the covered face of the heavily breathing man. "It's a shame, Miss, to make your kind come under the same roof with a ... a thing like he is!"

After a moment she asked,

"Is he so very bad, then?"

"As bad as men get ... and the best of us are awful sinful."

"Do you ... do you think men ever get so bad that anyone can be hurt by being ... by coming under the same roof with them?"

He shook his head and smiled again.

"I'd say yes, if it wasn't that I'd picked this _hombre_ out of th'

ditch an' brought him here an' played doctor to-night. You never can tell what you'll believe until the time comes when you've got to believe something."

A silent interval, which the woman broke.