“Sorry, Mr. McAllister, but I got to keep you right here till the sheriff comes home. Rules is rules.”
“And reason is reason, Bill—and when a man can’t see reason it’s time to operate on his eyes.”
There was a brief, sharp scuffle in the sheriff’s front hall. Young Bill Simpson proved too quick for Jim McAllister. He didn’t hit any harder than he had to with his official baton—but it was too hard for Uncle Jim.
By four o’clock, Richard Sherwood seemed to be as ill as when his friends had found him in the forest—as hot and dry with fever, as grievously tortured with pain, as blackly tormented of mind. That he was much stronger than he had been and that the mangled hand and inflamed arm looked better were just now the only indications of improvement.
Mrs. O’Dell and Noel Sabattis did everything they could think of for his relief. Mrs. O’Dell feared for his life, but old Noel was hopeful.
“Tough feller, Sherwood,” he said. “Dat four-mile trip to-day fuss ’im up some, but he ain’t so bad like when we find ’im. T’ink he dead man for sure dat time, me an’ Jim. Doctor fix ’im a’right.”
Mrs. O’Dell left the sick room for a little while. Marion saw tears on her cheeks.
“Won’t the man from the woods get well, Aunt Flora?” she asked.
“He is very ill, dear—and in great pain—with a wounded hand,” replied the woman, kissing her.
“Does Noel think he will have to be put in the ground—like Julie was—my mother Julie?”
The woman held the little girl tight for a moment.
“Noel thinks he will get well,” she whispered.
At six o’clock Sherwood was sleeping quietly, heavy with fever and evidently unconscious of his hand. By seven he was tossing and talking wildly again. There was no sign of Jim McAllister or the doctor.
Eight o’clock came, and still there was no word or sign of Jim or Doctor Scott. The sick man was bathed in perspiration by this time.
“Dat fix ’em,” said Noel to Flora O’Dell. “Dat sweat out de fever off his blood, a’right.”
Marion went to bed at eight-thirty. Five minutes later wheels rumbled, the red dogs barked and a knock sounded on the kitchen door. Mrs. O’Dell heard the dogs and wheels and came hurrying down the back stairs. Noel, who was already in the kitchen, hastened to the door. The lamp was on the table behind him. He pulled the door wide open, and in the instant of recognizing Mel Lunt and old Hood on the threshold he also saw and recognized the muzzle of a shotgun within six inches of his chin.