“Hurts pretty bad, let me tell you,” came the reply; “and the worst of it is, I can’t get the bleed to stop. If this keeps on, I’ll keel over soon; I’m feeling that weak, Charlie.”
The man with the bass voice said something that sounded like strong language. At first Giraffe feared he had taken a notion to open up the package, and learned of the cheat; but when he spoke, this proved not to be the case.
“That’s hard luck, ain’t it, Kimball?” he went on. “The only feller in our bunch thet knows a blamed thing about the doctor game, he’s gone an’ took sick hisself, an’ is alyin’ thar under thet ledge, whar we’ve hed to camp out ever since larnin’ thet them hunters was occupyin’ this here cabin. But after I’m rested a bit, tell you what I’ll do—you lay around and take it easy, while I hike back and bring my brother-in-law here. He’s on’y a light weight, an’ I guess as how I kin kerry him on my back. Won’t be the fust heavy pack I’ve toted over the Maine carries, believe me.”
“All right, Charlie,” said the other, who possessed a high voice, exactly the opposite of that belonging to the big leader. “And p’raps, now, Dick might be in one of his lucid turns, so he could tell me what to do to stop this pesky bleed. I never knowed what a crazy job it was till now, not to understand the first thing ’bout stoppin’ blood from flowin’ from a wound.”
“Sho! thet’s nawthin’. I’ve seen a logger bleed right to death ’cause nobody had any ijee how to do that same. You’d think loggers, of all men’d larn sech tricks. Likewise, you’d expect sailors would every one of ’em know how to swim; but they don’t, in half the cases.”
“Say, Charlie, what we goin’ to do?” asked the wounded man, fretfully.
“What d’ye mean by askin’ thet, Kimball?” demanded the other.
“Supposin’ I get in trim to move in a day or two, how long must we hang out in these here diggings, to take care of Dick?” Kimball asked.
“Wall, I want to do the right thing by the pore critter,” replied Charlie, reflectively. “You remembers that he’s my wife’s brother. But in course thar’s got to be a limit. We’re in danger every minit we stays here this side the border. An’ with thet thar sheriff pokin’ ’raound every which way, tryin’ to locate us, it’d be crazy fur us to hang out here long.”
“Put a limit on the time, Charlie. He ain’t any relation of mine, you see, and I just don’t feel like taking chances on twenty years to oblige your wife’s brother. P’raps I couldn’t make it just as well without you, but I know which is north, an’ that safety lies that way; so I’d just keep on travelin’ till I learned I was over the line in Canada.”