Before she could ask a question, I motioned her to be silent, and closed the door carefully. After which, without any of my foreign accent, I said:
"Mrs. Ballou, a woman who can manage a great farm and coin money in the cattle trade, can surely keep a secret. Will you bind up my arm while I tell you mine?"
"What!" she exclaimed, starting slightly; "you are not a—"
"Not a Swede? No, madame," I replied; "I am a detective, and I have been shot to-night by the hand that has struck at the happiness of 'Squire Ewing and his neighbor."
The splendid woman comprehended the situation instantly.
"Sit there," she said, pointing to her own easy chair. "And don't talk any more now. I shall cut away your sleeve."
"Can you?" I asked, deprecatingly.
"Can I?" contemptuously; "I bleed my cattle."
I smiled a little in spite of myself; then—