Ah, that's a hard question to ask. It's only answered by another, and not answered then.
"Don't your arm git tired holdin' it that-a'-way hour after hour?" said the Irishman, trying to divert her.
"He sleeps better that way," was all she said.
"Beats all," said Mike with undisguised admiration. "He clings to the Almighty with one hand, and a little Injin woman with the other. Suppose there's Injin angels, Bill?"
"Looks that-a'-way, don't it?" replied the foreman. "It's a sure thing there's one."
Bill had always kept a small supply of liquor on the ranch, hidden away with supreme cunning. Where or what his private cellar was no one ever knew, but on state occasions and in emergency Bill could be depended on to produce. The law of supply having been completely suspended, the private cellar had been reduced to a bottle containing perhaps one and a half drinks of whiskey and another containing perhaps a third of a bottle of brandy. The brandy he now divided carefully into three parts. One flask he handed to McShay, the other he put in the inside of his own storm-coat, and the rest he poured into a cup which he held out to Wah-na-gi.
"What is it, Bill?" she asked.
"It's fer him," he said, nodding toward the invalid. Wah-na-gi had to move to take the cup and, though she disengaged her hand ever so gently, the drifting man felt the anchor drag, and he woke with a little start.
"Well, boys," he said with a faint smile, seeing the two men over him; "what is it?"
"Just tellin' Wah-na-gi to make you take a little of this if you should feel faint in the night," said Bill.