JIM CARRIED HIS BURDEN TO ONE OF THE ROUND TABLES.
"Bring brandy!" he called out sharply to the nearest of the occupants of the room, who now came crowding forward with ejaculations of dismay. The man addressed was Fingie Whalen himself. He stared down at the woman with shocked surprise writ large on his sullen features.
"Why, it's Jess!" he mumbled, in a voice that he vainly strove to fill with distress. "Whatever has she been an' gone, an' done?"
"Get that brandy!" Jim reiterated the command curtly.
"Yes, sir," Fingie answered humbly, and hurried off to the bar. In a moment, he was back with the liquor, which he held to the woman's lips. To Jim's relief, Jess swallowed the draft easily enough—to tell the truth, rather greedily; but of that fact her rescuer was quite unaware, and from it he augured well.
Jess managed her apparent recovery from the effects of the fall with such art as she possessed, which, in truth, was not of the highest, though ample for the beguiling of a man who was honest and kindly and wholly unsuspecting. Soon, her eyes unclosed a little, and she breathed more deeply, and the moaning, which had been interrupted by the brandy, was resumed more vigorously. Through the paint on her cheeks showed the deeper red of a genuine flush, the natural result of the dram, but a sure evidence of vitality, none the less. Jim rejoiced over these signs of restoration, and even smiled on Fingie, as he bade him continue the chafing of the woman's hands.
"She's not seriously hurt," he remarked, with much satisfaction in his voice; "though the way she flopped off that horse was enough to jar her teeth loose." Being ignorant of the fact that Jess had been a member of a circus troupe before she yielded to the blandishments of the gambler, Jim wondered mightily that so severe a fall should have had no worse effect.
Jess opened her eyes wide, and stared up blankly into the face of the man who held her in his arms.
"Where am I?" she asked, with the languid air of her favorite stage heroine when swooning.