The cabin had all the signs of age, discolored by many Winters, a vine a dozen years old climbing over it. And Johnny Watson, who had known the Devil’s Pocket for a quarter of a century, had said that no man ever lived here!
But Dick Farley was in little mood for speculation. He stumbled on, conscious only of the dizzy nausea which drove even the pain of his hurt side into a dim, faraway background. After an endless groping through a thickening fog he knew that they had stepped from the sunlight into the shade; felt rough boards under his boots; felt that two arms, not just one, were tight around his body; knew with a grateful, long-drawn sobbing breath that he was lying upon blankets.
It was dusk in the cabin—twilight fragrant with the spicy odors dropping down from the grove—when he found himself at first groping for reality in a confused chaos of emotions and then gradually coming to full understanding. It was a great, low-walled room, a rectangle of light marking the door, two squares showing him the windows and a deep-mouthed fireplace crackling with a newly lighted fire.
Across the room from his bunk were a heavy little table and rough chair. His eyes went slowly to the floor—over the squared saplings which went to make it, across a bearskin, and to another door, smaller, lower than the other, leading into another room. He tried to lift himself upon his elbow, and fell back stabbed by the sharp pain in his shoulder. And then he turned his head quickly toward the narrow door. Then he had heard a step.
She came swiftly to him, looking down at him with her great eyes filled with concern. When she saw the look in his she smiled, and sitting down upon the edge of his bed put her hand upon his forehead.
“You are better,” her rich voice was saying in a matter-of-fact way. “You’re not so feverish, and you know where you are, don’t you?”
“Yes. Much better.” He called up a twisted smile to meet hers. And then, “I have been an awful nuisance.”
“You mustn’t say such things——”
But he insisted, looking steadily at her.
“If you hadn’t happened along—if you hadn’t found me then, or soon—do you know what would have happened to me? If I hadn’t died from my fail and exposure, I’d have died pretty soon from starvation. Do you know that?”