"No; I've just come; I haven't got a stock yet and there's no drug store in this jay town. It's on the way but that doesn't help us now. We ought to have plaster of Paris but we haven't. Hurry up—get a move on before it swells any more."
The man did as he was bid, with a look of doubt and uncertainty upon his face.
He returned almost immediately with strips torn from a case of fruit.
"That's good." Dr. Harpe laid them on the bunk with the bandages. She added shortly: "She's going to howl."
"Can't you give her anything?"
"No; I can't give ether by myself. I'm not going to take a chance like that. If she'd die on my hands it'd queer me here on the jump. 'Twon't kill her. She'll probably faint and then it'll be easy. When the muscles relax, hold on to her leg above her knee while I pull."
The man's face turned a ghastly hue as the child screamed and fainted away, nor did the color return as he watched the woman's clumsy fingers, the bungling movements which, unlettered as he was, told him of her inexperience—bungling movements which had not even compensating feminine gentleness.
When the child had revived and Dr. Harpe had finished, the man went outside and leaned against the wheel.
"Are you sure it'll be straight?"
She saw her own misgivings reflected in his face, and it exasperated her.