“A calicah dress! Now, if you, Barney Axel,” she said, “kin see any sense in callin’ a calicah dress a ‘loungeree’—”
Something rattled the door-latch faintly. Harrigan started, recovered himself, and nervously bit a chew from his plug.
“Guess it’s Pete,” said Cameron, dropping the bridle he was mending, and opening the door. He looked, and stepped back with an exclamation of horror.
His face as white as the snow at his feet, hat gone, hair clotted with blood, and hands smeared with a sickening red, David Ross stood tottering in the doorway. His eyes were heavy with pain. He raised an arm and motioned weakly up the trail. Then he caught sight of Harrigan’s face over Cameron’s shoulder. The soul of a hundred Highland ancestors flamed in his eyes.
“Your man,” he said, pointing to Harrigan, “is a damned poor shot.” He raised his hand to his coat-collar and fumbled at the button,—“And he’s dead—up there—”
Cameron caught him as he wilted across the threshold, and, with Barney Axel, helped carry him to the bedroom.
Harrigan had gone pale and was walking about the room.
Barney stood in the bedroom doorway, watching him silently. “So that’s the deer Fisty sent the Indian back fur. Always knowed Fisty’d jest as leave kill with his dukes, but settin’ a boozy Indian to drop a man from behind—Hell! that’s worse than murder.”
Cameron came from the bedside where his wife was bathing David’s head with cold water and administering small doses of whiskey.
“What did he mean, sayin’ your man was a dam’ poor shot?” Curious Jim fixed Harrigan with a suspicious glare.