Mackenzie felt his face flush, and cursed his weakness, but he could not pronounce the name that filled his heart.
“Yes, it was Rabbit,” said Dad, catching him up without the slightest understanding of his stammering. “She’s been stickin’ to you night and day. I tell you, John, them Indians can’t be beat doctorin’ a man up when he’s been chawed up by a animal.”
“I want to thank her,” Mackenzie said, feeling his heart swing very low indeed.
“You won’t see much of her now since you’ve come to your head, I reckon she’ll be passin’ you over to me to look after. She’s shy that way. Yes, sir, any time I git bit up by man or beast, or shot up or knifed, I’ll take Rabbit ahead of any doctor you can find. Them Indians they know the secrets of it. I wouldn’t be afraid to stand and let a rattlesnake bite me till it fainted if Rabbit was around. She can cure it.”
But Mackenzie knew from the odor of his bandages that Rabbit was not depending on her Indian knowledge in his case, or not entirely so. There was the odor of carbolic acid, and he was conscious all along that his head had been shaved around the wound in approved surgical fashion. He reasoned that Rabbit went about prepared with the emergency remedies of civilization, and put it down to her schooling at the Catholic sisters’ hands.
“Was there anybody––did anybody else come around?” Mackenzie inquired.
“Tim’s been by a couple of times. Oh, well––Joan.”
“Oh, Joan,” said Mackenzie, trying to make it sound as if he had no concern in Joan at all. But his voice trembled, and life came bounding up in him again with glad, wild spring.
“She was over the day after you got hurt, but she ain’t been back,” said Dad, with such indifference that he must have taken it for granted that Mackenzie held no tenderness for her, indeed. “I met Charley yesterday; he told me Joan was over home. Mary’s out here with him––she’s the next one to Joan, you know.”