Dan smiled at her from his heap of straw—an unkempt haggard figure.
“Not from so sweet a hand,” he responded, his old spirit rising strong above misfortune.
His voice held her, and she regarded him with a pensive face. She had known men in her day, which had declined long since toward its evening, and with the unerring instinct of her race she knew that the one before her was well worth the saving. Gallantry that could afford to jest in rags upon a pile of straw appealed to her Southern blood as little short of the heroic. She saw the pinch of hunger about the mouth, and she saw, too, the singular beauty which lay, obscured to less keen eyes, beneath the fever and the dirt.
“The march must have been fearful—I couldn't have stood it,” she said, half to test the man.
Rising to the challenge, he laughed outright. “Well, since you mention it, it wasn't just the thing for a lady,” he answered, true to his salt.
For a moment she looked at him in silence, then turned regretfully to Big Abel.
“The houses have filled up already, I believe,” she said, “but there is a nice dry stable up the street which has just been cleaned out for a hospital. Carry your master up the next square and then into the alley a few steps where you will find a physician. I am going now for food and bandages.”
She hurried on, and Big Abel, seizing Dan beneath the arms, dragged him breathlessly along the street.
“A stable! Huh! Hit's a wunner dey ain' ax us ter step right inter a nice clean pig pen,” he muttered as he walked on rapidly.
“Oh, I don't mind the stable, but this pace will kill me,” groaned Dan. “Not so fast, Big Abel, not so fast.”