“A tenderfoot. Easy, Hen! I’ve got his leg strapped to the girth. He’s in bad shape,” and she related, briefly, the particulars of the accident.
Dudley Stone had only a hazy recollection later of the noise and confusion of his arrival. He was borne into the house by two men—one of them the ranch foreman himself.
They laid him on a couch, cut the boot from his injured foot, and then the sock he wore.
Hen Billings, with bushy whiskers and the frame of a giant, was nevertheless as tender with the injured foot as a woman. Water with a chunk of ice floating in it was used to reduce the swelling. The foreman’s blunted fingers probed for broken bones.
But it seemed there was none. It was only a bad sprain, and they finally stripped him to his underclothes and bandaged the foot with cloths soaked with ice water.
When they got him into bed—in an adjoining room—the young mistress of Sunset Ranch reappeared, with a tray and napkins, with which she arranged a table.
“That’s what he wants—some good grub under his belt, Snuggy,” said the gigantic foreman, finally lighting his pipe. “He’ll be all right in a few days. I’ll send word to Creeping Ford for one of the boys to ride down to Badger’s and tell ’em. That’s where Mr. Stone says he’s been stopping.”
“You’re mighty kind,” said the Easterner, gratefully, as Sing, the Chinese servant, shuffled in with a steaming supper.
“We’re glad to have a chance to play Good Samaritan in this part of the country,” said Helen, laughing. “Isn’t that so, Hen?”
“That’s right, Snuggy,” replied the foreman, patting her on the shoulder.