Not a sound escaped either. The man kept his eyes fixed on the woman; the woman scanned the dreadful pathway with eyes deep-set and burning, resolute, vigilant, and yet defiant, too, as though she had been trapped into this track of danger, and was fighting without great hope, but with the temerity and nonchalance of despair. Her arms were bare to the shoulder almost, and her face was again and again drenched, but second succeeded second, minute followed minute in a struggle which might well turn a man’s hair gray, and now, at last—how many hours was it since they had been cast into this den of roaring waters?—at last, suddenly, over a large fall, and here smooth waters again, smooth and untroubled, and strong and deep. Then, and only then, did a word escape either; but the man had passed through torture and unavailing regret, for he realized that he had had no right to bring this girl into such a fight. It was not her friend who was in danger at Bindon. Her life had been risked without due warrant. “I didn’t know, or I wouldn’t have asked it,” he said, in a low voice. “Lord, but you are a wonder—to take that hurdle for no one that belonged to you, and to do it as you’ve done it. This country will rise to you.” He looked back on the raging rapids far behind, and he shuddered. “It was a close call, and no mistake. We must have been within a foot of down-you-go fifty times. But it’s all right now, if we can last it out and git there.” Again he glanced back, then turned to the girl. “It makes me pretty sick to look at it,” he continued. “I bin through a lot, but that’s as sharp practice as I want.”
“Come here and let me bind up your arm,” she answered. “They hit you—the sneaks! Are you bleeding much?”
He came near her carefully, as she got the big canoe out of the current into quieter water. She whipped the scarf from about her neck, and with his knife ripped up the seam of his sleeve. Her face was alive with the joy of conflict and elated with triumph. Her eyes were shining. She bathed the wound—the bullet had passed clean through the fleshy part of the arm—and then carefully tied the scarf round it over her handkerchief.
“I guess it’s as good as a man could do it,” she said, at last.
“As good as any doctor,” he rejoined.
“I wasn’t talking of your arm,” she said.
“Course not. Excuse me. You was talkin’ of them rapids, and I’ve got to say there ain’t a man that could have done it and come through like you. I guess the man that marries you’ll get more than his share of luck.”
“I want none of that,” she said, sharply, and picked up her paddle again, her eyes flashing anger.
He took a pistol from his pocket and offered it to her. “I didn’t mean any harm by what I said. Take this if you think I won’t know how to behave myself,” he urged.
She flung up her head a little. “I knew what I was doing before I started,” she said. “Put it away. How far is it, and can we do it in time?”