Moreover, with her I seemed to be put upon the defensive. I found myself reflecting on what she would do in such a case, and instantly deciding that Miss Jessie Montell would defy the devil and all his works if she thought herself in the right. In addition thereto I felt that she was unconsciously appraising me and classing me as a weakling; and that, added to my own half-formed conviction that in time of trial I was likely to prove so, made me a most uncomfortable individual for a few moments. Montell’s entrance saved me from a rather unwelcome situation. There is no knowing how deep a tangle I should have got myself into—she was so uncompromisingly direct. Montell, however, opened the door at the crucial period, and she turned to him with a recital of the huskies’ outbreak, lighting a cluster of candles as she talked.
“If you don’t shut up those ferocious brutes, or feed them a little oftener,” she concluded, “they’ll devour somebody one of these days, and there won’t be so much as a moccasin left to tell the tale.” At which extravagant forecast we all three laughed, and I felt myself equal to the occasion once more.
The upshot of this dog episode was that I stayed to supper with them, and went to my own cabin rather late in the evening.
[CHAPTER XV—STRANGERS TWAIN]
My arm was somewhat swollen, and it throbbed like an ulcerated tooth, when I got up the following morning, but I made shift to build a fire. When the icy chill was banished from the room, I dressed, and was getting what comfort I could out of a smoke when Montell knocked at my door, bringing a cold gust of air when he entered.
“Oho,” said he, “stirrin’ round, eh? This ain’t much like home, is it? How’s the arm?”
I told him briefly, having little inclination to enlarge on that theme—the pain was sufficient without the aggravation of discussing it.
“Uh-huh,” he grunted. “Now you just come along to the shack and have Jess fix it up again. She’s pretty near as good as a doctor. And seein’ she’s partly responsible, it’s no more’n fair. There ain’t no use you makin’ a hermit of yourself.”
I attempted to dodge this invitation, which seemed to savor of command. Montell’s semi-jocoseness rather jarred on me. For one thing his heartiness didn’t quite ring true. Possibly I misjudged him. He could have had no particular motive for posing on my account. But I got the impression that his solicitude was of the lip rather than of the heart. While I had passed a very pleasant evening with them, I did not contemplate making myself at home in the Montell cabin, by any means. I had a vague feeling that it involved disloyalty to Barreau. Montell, however, was quite insistent, and as I had no forthright reason for being churlish I ended by going with him.
He made a great fuss at helping me off with my coat, and while he hovered over me in his ponderous way Miss Montell came out of the other room. She nodded to me and smiled a greeting, whereupon he, busying himself with hanging my coat and hat upon a peg, plunged into a jesting account of my reluctance to leave my own fireside, relating with much detail what he said and what I said, and how I owed it to my arm to have it well cared for, and so on—till I wearied of his gabble. I don’t think she listened half the time. She moved about the room, getting a basin and warm water and other first, or perhaps I should say second, aids to the injured. And she washed and bandaged afresh the laceration, with an impersonal absorption in the task that I half resented.