"Oh, Susie, are you seriously hurt? Tell me, if you can," he lovingly pleaded, as he then for the first time noticed, with fear depicted on his countenance, a pool of dried blood on the sod beneath her.
After an evident struggle she laboredly gasped: "Yes—Jack—here," touching her right side with her left hand, causing her much effort to accomplish it.
Jack at once commenced to unfasten her dress, but she instinctively attempted to raise her arms to prevent him, while a delicate blush spread over her pale face.
"Susie, dear," said Jack, as he understood what her motion was intended to convey to him, "there are no woman's hands here to do what under the circumstances must be done; so, darling, let there be no false modesty. I want to save you, and you want to live."
Upon this appeal she made no more resistance, but her eyes closed, and the glow of her maiden delicacy deepened, while Jack, with the most sacred feelings, cut open her bodice with his sheath-knife and exposed her virgin bosom to the evening breeze. On the right side, immediately on a line with her shoulder, he discovered an ugly lance-wound, which had bled so profusely that she had fainted, and was almost exhausted when Jack found her. The wound had evidently stopped flowing some time since, and fortunately the blade had not penetrated her lungs; at least so thought Jack in his careful and gentle examination, determining the matter from the fact that there was no hemorrhage from her mouth, and he silently thanked God.
It was now long after sundown. In the lingering twilight he carefully washed the wound with water, using a portion of her skirt he had cut off for the purpose. Completing this office, and binding on a wet compress, Jack then moved her tenderly to a mat of soft buffalo-grass near by, made a pillow of his saddle, and a covering for her out of his saddle blanket, then busied himself in making her a cup of coffee, a supply of which and a small pot he always carried with him.
The coffee and some hardtack he had, revived the wounded girl very materially, reduced the incipient fever which had set in, and permitted her to fall into a gentle slumber; while Jack, under the brilliant constellations of the incomparable June night, nursed her through its silent watches. The poor fellow leaned patiently over her with looks of the most tender solicitude, bathing her temples now and then with water from the spring when she became the least restless, and occasionally running his fingers through her dark ringlets with the fondness of a young but constantly growing affection—for it was his first love, and he had given his soul up to it with all the strength and weakness of his passion.
The sun, though not yet above the horizon of the valley, was just gilding the crests of the Twin Mounds next morning when Susie awoke with a glance of approving affection on Jack. Although she did not speak, there is a language of looks which is sufficient for the purposes of love. As he quietly kissed her he understood it perfectly, and it filled his soul with joy.
Jack then, after his ablutions at the spring, made a little fire, put on his coffee-pot, which soon boiled, and while it was settling he tenderly washed the wounded girl's face and placed a fresh compress on the cruel hole in her side.