Part 41

XVI

NATALIE WOUNDED

The frightened horses struggled over the watercourse, and gained the trees before Garth, hampered as he was, succeeded in drawing their heads together, and stopping them. Slipping out of the saddle without loosening his grasp of Natalie, he lifted her off, ever careful to shield her from possible further shots with his own body. He remembered Mabyn's was a single-shot weapon; and he counted on the time it would take the Indian woman to obtain ammunition, and reload. Quickly and tenderly laying Natalie on the ground under shelter of a stump, he unslung his own rifle. But as he dropped to his knee, and raised it, he saw the woman on the edge of the cut-bank swing the stock of her gun around her head, and send the weapon spinning out over the water. Meanwhile Mabyn was running up the hill toward her with significant action. No immediate further danger threatened. Garth put the pair out of his mind, and bent over Natalie. What happened to the woman at Mabyn's hands was a matter of indifference to him now.

Natalie's left arm hung useless; and a soaking crimson stain spread broadly on her sleeve between elbow and shoulder. Her face had gone chalky white, her eyes were half closed, and her teeth were set painfully in her blue nether lip. To see his sparkling, vivid Natalie brought so low, was a sight to open all the doors of Garth's brain to madness. His heart swelled suffocatingly with rage and grief, but there was no time for that, when every faculty he possessed must be concentrated on saving her; and forcing it back, he picked her up again with infinite tenderness. His first and instinctive thought was to return and seize the hut; so that he might at least have a roof to cover her. He suspected the other two were now without arms; but even if they had a weapon, he had a better one; was a sure shot; and was on his guard.

At the first move he made in the direction of the hut, Natalie, whom he had thought unconscious, divined his intention.

"Garth! Not in his house!" she murmured feverishly. "I will not go in there! I will not!"

He paused in a painful perplexity. "But dearest, there is no other house," he said.

"Put me down in the open air," she begged. "It would suffocate me! I will not endure it!"

So Garth turned back among the trees. He strode over the dead leaves and the pine needles to the lake shore. Here, between the willows that grew thickly at the water's verge, and the heavier timber, extended an open strip of grass, still fresh and green. He laid his burden down upon it; and, rolling up his coat, put it under her head for a pillow.

He hastily cut away her sleeve, exposing the injury. The ball had passed through, making a clean opening where it entered, and a jagged wound whence it issued. It was clear the bone was broken; but from the character of the bleeding, even Garth could see that the artery was uninjured. He brought water from the lake in his hat, and gently washed the wound; but even in this he doubted if he did right; for the water was cold--but he had nothing in which to heat it. The best he could do was to take the chill out of it by pressing the handkerchief between his hot hands.

Everything they possessed that might have been of service was two miles off; and might just as well have been a hundred; for Garth could not think of leaving her; and he shrank from the thought of inflicting the agony it would cause her to be carried so far. And even suppose they gained their own camp, the situation would be little improved; for how was he in his ignorance to undertake the delicate task of setting the shattered bone; of improvising splints and bandages; and supplying, what a glance at the ugly wound showed to be needful, antiseptics? A surgeon, whatever his skill, rarely dares trust the steadiness of his hand on the bodies of those he loves; what then was Garth to do, who had no skill at all?

He had his dark hour then, tasting ultimate despair. He sat beside her, gripping his dull head between his hands, and striving desperately to contrive, where there was nothing to contrive with. Oh, the pity and the wrong of it, that it was she who must be hurt! he thought; and how joyfully he would have taken it himself to relieve her. He bled inwardly; and the physical pain of the most hideous wounds could not equal the agony he experienced in his helplessness.

Meanwhile the wound momentarily changed. The arm began to swell and darken; and Garth knew there was no time to lose. He made one attempt to proceed, kneading the flesh of the arm very gently to explore the broken ends of the bone--but Natalie's piteous cry of pain completely unmanned him. He desisted, shaking like a leaf, and sick with compassion; and he knew he would never be able to do it.

What seemed like an age passed; though it was no more than a few minutes. He was bending over her, doing what little he could to ease her pain; and with knotted brows rapidly considering, and rejecting, one after another, the desperate expedients that suggested themselves. Suddenly looking up he perceived among the trees, at the distance of a few paces, Rina standing. Hot anger instantly welled up in his breast, and made a red blur before his eyes. Rina's sex was no protection to her then. He picked up his gun.

Observing the action, Rina mutely spread her hands, palms outward. Her entire aspect had changed; the storm of passion had passed; and she stood contrite and sullen. It was impossible for the blindest passion to shoot at a figure in such an attitude. Garth lowered his gun; but he still kept it across his knees, and his face did not relax. The woman was loathsome to him.

"What do you want?" he demanded coldly.

Rina came a little closer. "I sorry," she said sulkily--like a child unwillingly confessing a fault. "I t'ink I go looney for a while. I not hear right. I t'ink she try to tak' my 'osban' from me!"

Garth glanced at the suffering Natalie with contracted brows. "That's all very well!" he said bitterly. "But it can't undo what's done!"

"I can mak' her well, maybe," said Rina, still affecting indifference. "I know what to do. My mot'er, she teach me. If you let me look at her, I tell you."

A wild hope sprang up in Garth's breast. If the girl were only able to help Natalie, his hate of her could very well content itself a while. But dare he trust her? With keen, hard eyes he sought to read her face. Her own eyes avoided his; and she made a picture of savage indifference; but as he looked he saw two great tears roll down her cheeks. In his desperate situation it was well worth the risk.

Raising his gun, he said coldly: "You may look at her. If you try to injure her, I will send a bullet through your head."

Receiving the permission, Rina came forward, careless of the threatening gun; and dropped to her knees beside Natalie. She examined the wound on both sides; and felt of the fracture with delicate fingers. To judge of the normal position of the bones, she manipulated her own arm. Garth never took his eyes from her; but she was tenderer with the patient than he could have been.

Finally she raised a mask-like face to Garth. "I can fix it," she said. "If you let me."

Whatever her private feelings were, she had a confident air, that could not but convey some assurance to him. He nodded silently; after what he had suffered, he scarcely dared believe in such good fortune.

Rina quickly rose. "You mak' a fire to heat water," she said coolly. "I go to bring everyt'ing."

With the words, she was gone among the trees; and Garth, overjoyed to be able to do something with his hands, hastened to build a fire.

Before he really expected her, she was back with what she needed, a pot for heating the water, a basin, several kinds of herbs, some strips of yellowed linen for bandages, a blanket and a knife. While the water was heating, she cut a deep segment of the smooth white bark of a young poplar for a splint--the curve of it was judged to a nicety to fit Natalie's arm. During the operation of setting the bone, Garth watched her unswervingly, clenching his teeth to bear the spectacle of Natalie's agony. For every pang of hers he suffered a sharper; the sweat coursed down his face.

But at last it was over; the wound washed and fomented with bruised leaves, the splint fitted snug, and the whole neatly bandaged. Natalie, wrapped in the blanket, soon fell into the sleep of exhaustion.