Marton nodded.
“Then come right along. I’ll do what I can.”
CHAPTER III
A Real Samaritan
IT was the dim-lit interior of a lean-to built against the big barn. It was the farmer’s workshop, littered with the tools that served his simple needs. Marton was propped against a sturdy, home-made table that also served the purposes of a bench. He was gazing down in the yellow lamplight at the famished creature squatting beside the small wood-stove on an up-turned box.
It was a painful spectacle. He had realised from his brief catechism that the man was educated. Yet he sat there devouring a great platter of hot stew at a speed and in a fashion such as he had never before witnessed in any human creature. The wolfishness of it was terrible. The man was literally starving.
Marton was a man of swift decision. And his decision had long since been taken. The stranger had spoken truth when he said that another night in the open without food would be his last. He had committed a crime against the law, and had been sentenced for it. And now he had made a getaway. Well, that crime by no means found the farmer on the side of the law. On the contrary, it found him on the side of this poor, starving wreck. And he meant to help him all he knew. That is, if subsequent talk failed to inspire doubt.
So he had brought him to this little workshop, where the stove was still alight, and had released him from the lacerating shackles. He had sought out Lightning and warned him not to intrude. Then he had forthwith passed on to the house, and told Molly just sufficient to account for his demand for the necessary food with which to restore the convict to some semblance of well-being. But in all this he gave no clue to the feelings which the encounter had inspired.
The convict cleared up the last of the gravy by wiping the platter out with bread. He devoured the last crumb of the bread, and took a long drink from the pannikin of steaming tea that was on the ground beside him. Then he looked up with an irresistible smile in his eyes.
“Gee! That’s swell!” he said. “The liquor doesn’t count so much, except it’s hot. Snow-water’s poor sort of stuff, but it’s drink. I’ll never forget you gave me that feed, whoever you are. I hadn’t eaten for seven days and seven nights.”
Then his gaze lowered to the hideous lacerations of his wrists.