She reached into the car and produced a whiskey flask, then sat down in the dust and took upon her ample lap the head of the senseless man. A sudden deftness became manifest in her motions, an unguessed tenderness relieved the harshness of her features.
“This here is breakin’ the law,” she ruminated, pouring liquor between the lips of the vagrant, “but it ain’t the first time Mehitabel Crump has broke laws to help some poor devil! Hm! Looks to me like he ain’t et for quite a spell.”
With increasing interest she surveyed the slowly reviving stranger.
He was fully as lank as she was stout, and must have stood a good six foot two in height. His clothes were tattered remnants of once sober black. Long locks of iron-gray hair hung about his ears. His features were careworn and haggard, yet in them lingered some indefinable suggestion of fine lines and deeply carven strength. Had Mehitabel Crump ever viewed Sir Henry Irving—which she had not—she might have guessed a few things about her “find.”
Suddenly the eyes, the intensely black eyes, of the man opened. So did his lips.
“Angels and ministers of grace!” His voice, although faint, was touched with a deep intonation, a roundness of the vowels, a clarity of accent. “As I do live and breathe, it is the kiss of lordly Bacchus which doth welcome me!”
“Take it calm,” advised Mehitabel Crump, pityingly. “You’ll have your right sense pretty soon. Many’s the time I’ve seen Crump keeled over, and come to with his mind awandering. Jest take it calm, pilgrim. I’ll have a bite o’ cornbread——”
She lowered his head to the dust, rose, and went to the flivver. Presently she returned with a slab of cold cornbread divided by bacon, and a desert water bottle.
“Heaps o’ lunch in the car.” She aided the gaunt one to sit up, and he clutched at the food feverishly. “My land! Ain’t et real frequent lately, have ye?”
The man, his mouth full, shook his head dumbly. About his eyes was a brilliancy which told of sheer starvation. To the full as worldly wise as any person in broad New Mexico, the woman asked no questions as yet; she procured from the car a basket which contained the remainder of her luncheon, and set forth the contents.