“If that’s what it is, I shan’t lack entertainment.”
She looked wonderingly in his face.
“I was weeks before cutting up a little wood. But somebody stole it. Scarcer than gold up here.”
Oh, yes, the discoverer of the Mother Lode had stores of the precious metal hidden away somewhere. The skulker among the rocks—he knew!
“Let me help.” She went closer with outstretched hand. But he started and dropped the clumsily held wood. It all happened in an instant. Hildegarde, following the look on the wild face he was bending down, saw that his concern was not for the precious and sole piece of timber in the hut, but for the oilskin bundle under the bed, which her dog was in the act of investigating. The half-blind beast on the blanket saw, too. She made one bound and fell upon Hildegarde’s companion with a fury that filled the narrow space with noise of battle. The sick man called off his dog, while Hildegarde reviled hers and tugged at his collar.
When peace was again restored, “I must take him away,” said his mistress. “He’s behaving very badly.”
“No, it will be all right if I—” The sick man leaned still further over the side of the narrow bed, and fastened the hand Hildegarde couldn’t bear to look at under the knotted oilskin.
As she saw him feebly straining to lift it: “Oh, let me,” she said, and bent to help him.
Again his dog flew to the rescue, while the man himself, with a desperate final effort, almost snatched the bundle from under her fingers. “I—I beg your pardon,” he said panting, and again he made his dog lie down.