“How perfectly foolish!” gasped Dora.
“Not to Smith,” Susie replied dryly, “nor to Mr. Ralston.”
Susie looked at the unoccupied chairs at the table as she and Dora seated themselves. Ralston’s, Tubbs’s, Smith’s, and McArthur’s chairs were vacant.
“Looks like you’re losin’ your boarders fast, Ling,” she remarked.
“Good thing,” Ling answered candidly.
The Indian woman gulped her coffee, but refused the food which was passed to her. A strange faintness, accompanied by nausea, was creeping upon her. Her vision was blurred, and she saw Meeteetse Ed, at the opposite end of the table, as through a fog. She pushed back her chair and went into the living-room, swaying a little as she walked. A faint moan caught Susie’s ear, and she hastened to her mother.
The woman was lying on the floor by the bench where she sewed, her head pillowed on her rag-rug.
“Mother! Why, what’s the matter with your hand? It’s swelled!”
“I heap sick, Susie!” she moaned. “My arm aches me.”
“Look!” cried Susie, who had turned back her sleeve. “Her arm is black—a purple black, and it’s swellin’ up!”