Bridles were taken off and girths loosened. Then the doctor folded down the top of the feed-sack so that Bobby could eat, and left the little horse devouring his oats.
Now the two men made toward the shanty and silently entered a small, low room lighted by a single kerosene lamp. The walls of the room were of rough pine boards, smoke-stained; the ceiling was of blackened cheesecloth that sagged low overhead. There was a rough board table beside the door, and two benches, as unplaned as the table, for seats. A small stove stood in one corner, rusted by the rain that had trickled down upon it from the pipe-opening in the roof; against a wall stood a bed of boards—a bed only wide enough for one person. Upon it, under a grey blanket, lay a figure.
The doctor picked up the lamp, crossed to the bedside, and let the light shine down upon his patient—a man not more than twenty-eight years of age. The fevered face was ugly, almost apelike; the forehead bulged, the cheek-bones were high, the nose so flat that the nostrils were two wide, black holes; and the mouth was full and coarse. The doctor recoiled as he looked, and turned to the man standing at his shoulder.
He saw a face that he liked still less—eyes small and deep-set, and overhung with heavy, coarse brows; a nose lean and high and twisted so far out of line that it made a left obtuse angle from forehead to mouth; and long, thin lips that opened over small, uneven, discoloured teeth. But the most striking feature of the face was a scar. It lay across the left cheek from the corner of the eye to the point of the heavy chin. It was a straight scar—as straight as if made by a keen knife drawn along the edge of a ruler. And it was old, and a dead white that contrasted sharply with the liquor-reddened skin of the cheek.
“I’ll hold the lamp,” said the man with the scar.
The doctor unbuckled his case, threw off his coat and rolled up his sleeves. He did not ask what was the matter, but laid back the bedclothes and began his look for a wound. And he found it—a gunshot wound in the right side, at the waist-line, and mortally deep.
“My! This oughta been ’tended to hours ago,” he said severely. “When did it happen?”
“Yesterday. He’s been unconscious ever since.”
“Git me some hot water.”
Then, for an hour, not a word was spoken. The doctor worked with all his energy, forgetting where he was, forgetting hunger and weariness. The table had been moved close to the bed and the lamp placed upon it. So the man with the scar had nothing to do. He walked the floor, his head down and held a little sidewise, as if he were listening; and as he walked his eyes continually shifted from side to side.