As the captain handed over the schoolmaster’s inert form, he was too full of alarm to notice that the arms which received it were Jimmy Claiborne’s.
“Is he dead?” asked Jimmy, in a hoarse whisper.
Charlie Hoyt stared at him. “Dod rot!” he ejaculated. “You’re trembling! What’s the matter with you? The master’s not dead. Look at that.”
Then Jimmy saw the schoolmaster’s breath coming faintly like a frosty thread. He drew his own breath more freely.
“If you’re afraid to carry him, I’ll call Mose,” went on Charlie. “He’s hurt on the head. If it weren’t for that we could leave him over there by the fire till he sobers up. I wonder where he got it. Stocked up at Marietta, most likely. Here’s part of a corn-bin cover, shot out of the fire. We can lay him on that. It will carry better.”
The long bin cover, with its charred edges, was a clumsy thing to carry, and the two stumbled slowly along the dark path to the Royce’s cabin. They set their burden down several times to rest and get a better hold. Once Charlie fell and the schoolmaster slid from his rude stretcher into the snow. Perspiring and breathless they picked him up again and went heavily on.
Several women had gathered at the Royce’s from the neighboring cabins. They were all brave women, used to the alarms and hardships of their wild life, and they received the little party, that looked so much grimmer than it was, without excitement.
“It looks to me kinder like a fight,” said Charlie, when he had examined the master’s bruises carefully in the light of a tallow dip.
“It must have been a fight,” said Mrs. Royce. “That is never a blow from a flying timber. His eye is puffing up, too. He couldn’t have been lying long when you found him.”