“Ha! ha!—ho! he! a—” roared our hero, with a mingled feeling of exasperation and savage glee—“an ass? Why, it’s a lovely slender creature, with short pretty ears and taper limbs, and a sleek, glossy coat, like—like me, Mary, dear; why, I’m an ass myself. Pray, do get me somethin’ to eat. I really believe my appetite’s comin’ back agin.”
Mary looked at March in much concern. She had once nursed the Wild Man through a severe illness, and knew what delirium was, and she began to suspect that her guest was beginning to give way.
“Now, lie down,” she said with an air of decision that was almost ludicrous in one so youthful. Yet March felt that he must obey. “Me will git meat ready. You sleep littil bit.”
March shut his eyes at once; but, the instant that Mary turned to attend to the iron kettle, he opened them, and continued to gaze at the busy little housewife, until she chanced to look in his direction, when he shut them again quickly, and very tight. This was done twice; but the third time Mary caught him in the act, and broke into a merry laugh. It was the first time she had laughed aloud since March met her; so he laughed too, out of sheer delight and sympathy.
When March had finished breakfast, he tried to get up, and found, to his great relief and satisfaction, that no bones were broken—a fact of which he had stood in considerable doubt—and that his muscles were less acutely pained than they had been. Still, he was very stiff, and quite unable, with any degree of comfort, to walk across the cave; so he made up his mind to lie there till he got well—a resolution which, in the pride of his heart, he deemed exceedingly virtuous and praiseworthy, forgetting, either deliberately or stupidly, that the presence of Mary rendered that otherwise dull cavern the most delightful of sick chambers, and that her attendance was ample compensation and reward for any amount of pain or self-denial.
“Mary,” he said, when she had cleared away the débris of the morning meal, “sit down here, and tell me a few things. You’re so terribly close that one doesn’t know what he may ask an’ what he mayn’t. But if you don’t like to speak, you can hold your tongue, you know. Now, tell me, how old are you?”
“Fifteen,” replied Mary.
“Ay! I thought ye’d been older. How long have ye bin with Dick?”
“In cave here—ten year. Before that, me live in my father’s wigwam.”
“Was yer father a trapper?” inquired March tenderly.