Page:Frederick Faust--Free Range Lanning.djvu/161

Rh "Granddad, it's the gent that tried to buy Mary!"

The old man had produced a murderous jackknife with a blade that had been ground away to the disappearing point by years of steady grinding.

"Get some wood in the stove," he commanded. "Fire her up, quick. Put on some water. Easy, lad!"

The room became a place of turmoil with the clatter of the stove lids being raised, the clangor of the kettle being filled and put in place. By the time the fire was roaring and the boy had turned, he found the bandages had been taken from the body of the stranger and his grandfather was studying the smeared naked torso with a sort of detached, philosophic interest. With the thumb and forefinger of his left hand he was pressing deeply into the left shoulder of Andrew.

"Now, there's an arm for you, Jud," said the old man. "See them long, stringy muscles in the forearm? If you grow up and have muscles like them, you can call yourself a man. And you see the way his stomach caves in? Aye, that's a sign! And the way his ribs sticks out—and just feel them muscles on the point of his shoulder Oh, Jud, he would of made a prime wrestler, this fine bird of ours!"

"It's like touchin' somethin' dead, granddad," said the boy. "I don't dast to do it!"

"Jud, they's some times when I just about want to give you up! Dead? He ain't nowheres near dead. Jest bled a bit, that's all. Two as pretty little wounds as was ever drilled clean by a powerful rifle at short range. Dead? Why, inside two weeks he'll be fit as a fiddle, and inside a month he'll be his own self! Dead! Jud, you make me tired! Gimme that water."

He went to work busily. Out of a sort of first-aid