“Don’t talk, Jeff,” she commanded. “I can see just what happened. Lie easy and get your strength. I’ve got to take you to French Village at once.”
She ran out to bring water. When she returned he was sitting dizzily on the edge of the bunk. While she bathed his head with the water and gave him a little to drink, she talked to him and crooned over him as she would over a baby for she saw that he was shaken and half delirious with pain.
Brom Bones was standing munching twigs where she had left him. He had never before been asked to carry double and he did not like it. But the girl pleaded so pitifully and so gently into his silky black ear that he finally gave in.
When they were mounted, she fastened the white collar of her jacket into a sling for the boy’s broken arm, and with a prayer to the heathen Brom Bones to go tenderly they were off down the trail.
When they were half way down the trail Jeffrey spoke suddenly:
“Say, Ruth, what’s the use trying to save these 101 people? Let’s sell out while we can and take mother and go away.”
“Why, Jeff, dear,” she said lightly, “this fight hasn’t begun yet. Wait till we get to French Village. You’ll say something different. You’ll say just what you said to the Shepherd of the North; remember?”
Jeffrey said no more. The girl’s heart was weak with the pain she knew he was bearing, but she knew that they must go through with this.
All French Village and the farmers of Little Tupper country were gathered in front of Arsene Lacomb’s store. Rafe Gadbeau was standing on the steps haranguing them. He had stayed with his prisoner as he thought up to the last possible moment, so he stammered in his speech when he saw a big black horse come tearing down the street carrying a girl and a white-faced, black-headed boy behind her. Rogers, the railroad lawyer beside him, said:
“Go on, man. What’s the matter with you?”