The Ranch at the Wolverine

by B. M. Bower

In half an hour or so Ward rested his arms upon his own doorstep and dropped his perspiring face upon them. He lay there a long while, in a dead faint.

After awhile he moved, lifted his head, and looked about him dully at first and then with a certain stoical acceptance of his plight. He looked into the immediate future and tried to forecast its demands upon his strength and to prepare for them. He crawled farther up on the step, reached the latch, and opened the door. He crawled in, pulled himself up by the foot of his bunk, and sat down weakly with his head in his hands. Like a hurt animal, he had obeyed his instinct and had crawled home. What next?

If Ward had been a weaker man, he would have answered that question speedily with his gun. He did think of it contemptuously as an easy way out. If he had never met Billy Louise, he might possibly have chosen that way. But Ward had changed much in the past two years, and at the worst he had never been a coward. His hurt was sending waves of nausea over him, so that he could not concentrate his mind upon anything. Then he thought of the bottle of whisky he kept in his bunk for emergencies. Ward was not a man who drank for pleasure, but he had the Western man's faith in a good jolt of whisky when he felt a cold coming on or a pain in his stomach—or anything like that. He always kept a bottle on hand. A quart lasted him a long time.

He felt along the footboard of the bunk till his fingers touched the bottle, drew it out from its hiding-place—he hid it because stray callers would have made short work of it—and, placing the uncorked bottle to his trembling lips, swallowed twice.

He was steadier now, and the sickness left him like fog before a stiff breeze. His eyes went slowly around the cabin, measuring his resources, and his needs and limitations. He pulled his one chair toward him—the chair which Buck Olney had occupied so unwillingly—and placed his left knee upon it. It hurt terribly, but the whisky had steadied him so that he could bear the pain. He managed to reach the cupboard where he kept his dishes, and took down a bottle of liniment and a box of carbolized vaseline which he happened to have. He was near the two big, zinc water pails which he had filled that morning just to show Buck Olney how cool he was over his capture, and he bethought him that water was going to be precious in the next few weeks.

He lifted down one pail and swung it forward as far as he could, and set it on the floor ahead of him. Then he swung the other pail beside it. Painfully he hitched his chair alongside, lifted the pails and set them forward again. He did that twice and got them beside his bunk. He went back and inspected the tea-kettle, found it half full, and carried that also beside the bunk. Then he took another drink of whisky and rested awhile.

Bandages! Well, there was a new flour-sack hanging on a nail. He stood up, leaned and got it, and while he was standing, he reached for the cigar-box where he kept his bachelor sewing outfit; two spools of very coarse thread, some large-eyed needles to carry it, an assortment of buttons, and a pair of scissors. He cut the flour-sack into strips and sewed the strips together; his stitches were neater than you might think.

When the bandage was long enough, he rolled it as he had seen doctors do, and fished some pins out of the cigar-box and laid them where he could get his fingers on them quickly. He stood up again, reached across to a box of canned milk, and pried off the lid. "I'm liable to need you, too," he muttered to the rows of cans, and pulled the box close. He took Buck Olney's knife and whittled some very creditable splints from the thin boards, and rummaged in his "warbag" under the bunk for handkerchiefs with which to wrap the splints.

When he had done all that he could do to prepare for the long siege of pain and helplessness ahead of him, he moved along the bunk until he was sitting near the head of it with his broken leg extended before him, and took a last look to make sure that everything was ready. He felt his gun at his hip, removed belt and all, and threw it back upon the bed. Then he turned his head and stared, frowning, at the black butt where it protruded from the holster suggestively ready to his hand. He reached out and took the gun, turned it over, and hesitated. No telling what insane impulse fever might bring upon him—and still—no telling what Buck Olney might do when he discovered that he was not in any immediate danger of hanging.

If Buck came back to have it out with him, he would certainly need that gun. He knew Buck, a broken leg wouldn't save him. On the other hand, if the fever of his hurt hit him hard enough— "Oh, fiddlesticks!" he told himself at last. "If I get crazy enough for that, the gun won't cut much ice one way or the other. There are other ways of bumping off—" So he tucked the gun under the mattress at the head of his bed where he could put his hand upon it if the need came.