He liked the manner in which she moved her head forward to indicate her resolve, when she forced the cloth even more tightly about the arm. The injured man cried aloud and sought to roll over, and Bayard saw the girl's mouth set in a firmer cast, but in other ways she bore herself as if there had been no sound or movement to frighten or disturb her.
"That'll do," he told her, watching the result of the pressure carefully. "Now, would you tear that pillow slip into strips wide enough for a bandage?" She shook the pillow from the casing. "That'll tickle Uncle, downstairs," he added. "It's worth two bits, but he can charge me a dollar for it."
She did not appear to hear this last; just went on tearing strips with hands that trembled ever so little and his gray eyes lighted with a peculiar fire. Weakness was present in her, the weakness of inexperience, brought on by the sight of blood, the presence of a strange man of a strange type, the proximity of that muttering, filthy figure with his face shrouded from her; but, behind that weakness, was an inherent strength, a determination that made her struggle with all her faculties to hide its evidences; and that courage was the quality which Bayard had sought in her. Only, he could not then appreciate its true proportions.
"Is this enough?" she asked.
"Plenty. I can manage alone now, if—"
"But I might as well help you through with this!"
She had again detected his doubt of her, discerned his motive in giving her an avenue of graceful escape from the unpleasant situation; she thought that he still mistrusted her stamina and her stubborn refusal to give way to any weakness set the words on her lips to cut him short.
"Well, if you want to," he said, soberly, "you can keep this thing tight, while I wash this hole out an' bind it up.... I wouldn't look at it, if I was you; you ain't used to it, you know."
He looked her in the eye, on that last advice, for a moment. She understood fully and, as she took the stick in her hand to keep the blood flow checked, she averted her face. For a breath he looked at the stray little hairs about the depression at the back of her neck. Then, to his work.
He was gentle in cleansing the wound, but he could not touch the raw flesh without giving pain and still accomplish his end, and, on the first pressure of his fingers, the man writhed and twitched and jerked at the arm, drawing his knees up spasmodically.