Page:Scribner's Monthly, Volume 12 (May–October 1876).djvu/213

Rh had acquired by experience, and that more delicate nursing which was instinctive with him. He was shocked at the revelation of a degree of emaciation in the figure of this young fellow that he had not before suspected. Gabriel had nursed many sick men, and here was one who clearly ought to be under the doctor's hands, economizing his vitality as a sedentary invalid, who had shown himself to him hitherto only as a man of superabundant activity and animal spirits. Whence came the power that had animated this fragile shell? Gabriel was perplexed; he looked down upon his own huge frame with a new and sudden sense of apology and depreciation, as if it were an offense to this spare and bloodless Adonis.

And then, with an infinite gentleness, as of a young mother over her new-born babe, he stanched the blood and bound up the wounds of his new friend so skillfully that he never winced, and with a peculiar purring accompaniment that lulled him to repose. Once only, as he held him in his arms, did he change his expression, and that was when a shadow and a tread—perhaps of a passing hare or squirrel—crossed the mouth of his cave, when he suddenly caught the body to his breast with the fierceness of a lioness interrupted with her cubs. In his own rough experience, he was much awed by the purple and fine linen of this fine gentleman's under-clothing, not knowing the prevailing habits of his class; and when he had occasion to open his bosom to listen to the faint beatings of his heart, he put aside with great delicacy and instinctive honor a fine gold chain from which depended some few relics and keepsakes which this scamp wore. But one was a photograph, set in an open locket, that he could not fail to see, and that at once held him breathless above it. It was the exact outline and features of his sister Grace, but with a strange shadow over that complexion which he remembered well as beautiful, that struck him with superstitious awe. He scanned it again eagerly.

"May be it was a dark day when she sot!" he murmured softly to himself; "may be it's the light in this yer tunnel; may be the heat o' this poor chap's buzzum hez kinder turned it. It ain't measles, fur she had 'em along o' Olly."

He paused and looked at the unconscious man before him, as if trying to connect him with the past.

"No," he said simply, with a resigned sigh, "it's agin reason! She never knowed him! It's only my foolishness, and my thinkin' and thinkin' o' her so much. It's another gal, and none o' your business, Gabe, and you a-prying inter another man's secrets, and takin' advantage of him when he's down."

He hurriedly replaced it in his companion's bosom, and closed the collar of his shirt as Jack's lips moved.

"Pete!" he called feebly. "It's his pardner, may be he's callin' on," said Gabriel to himself; then aloud, with the usual, comforting, professional assent: "In course, Pete, surely! He's coming, right off; he'll be yer afore you know it."

"Pete," continued Jack, forcibly, "take the mare off my leg, she's breaking it! Don't you see? She's stumbled! Blast it, quick! I'll be late! They'll string him up before I get there!"

In a moment Gabriel's stout heart sank. If fever should set in, if he should become delirious, they would be lost. Providentially, however, Jack's aberration was only for a moment; he presently opened his black eyes and stared at Gabriel. Gabriel smiled assuringly.

"Am I dead and buried?" said Jack gravely, looking around the dark vault, "or have I got 'em again." "Ye wuz took bad fur a minit, that's all," said Gabriel, re-assuringly, much relieved himself; "yer all right now!"

Hamlin tried to rise, but could not. "That's a lie," he said cheerfully. "What's to be done?" "Ef you'd let me hev my say, without gettin' riled," said Gabriel apologetically. "I'd tell ye. Look yer," he continued persuasively, "ye ought to hev a doctor afore thet wound gets inflamed; and ye ain't goin' to get one, bein' packed round by me. Now don't ye flare up, but harkin! Allowin' I goes out to them chaps ez is huntin' us, and sez, 'Look yer, you kin take me, provided ye don't bear no malice agin my friend, and you sends a doctor to fetch him outer the tunnel.' Don't yer see, they can't prove anythin' agin ye, anyway," continued Gabriel, with a look of the intensest cunning; "I'll swear I took you pris'ner, and Joe won't go back on his shot."

In spite of his pain and danger, this proposition afforded Jack Hamlin apparently the largest enjoyment.

"Thank ye," he said with a smile; "but as there's a warrant by this time out against me for horse-stealing, I reckon I won't put myself in the way of their nursing. They might forgive you for killing a Mexican of