“You’d best get right into the house, Sis,” he said. “Doc Lennox is with her now. Poor little kid. She woke right up as we rode up to this verandah, and I guess I was never so crazy at the sight of a pair of wide-open eyes in my life. Right up to then I was scared she was dead, for all I couldn’t believe it. But she wasn’t. No. And she’s going to get right. But you get right in and hand Doc the help he needs. There’s something else worrying, and—I need to make a big talk here with Lightning.”
Blanche was glad enough to hurry away to Molly. And Jim waited until she had passed in through the open French window. Then he smiled as he indicated a chair to the man he had determined to make his friend.
“Will you sit, Lightning?” he said. “You and I are no use to her in there. Doc Lennox is a real, smart doctor man. And my sister’s crazy for that little girl of yours. You and I can do better talking.”
There was a moment of hesitation, while Lightning seemed in the throes of making up his mind. Then, quite suddenly, his coldness seemed to melt, and he nodded.
“I don’t get things, an’ I want to know,” he said, as he sat himself in the lounging chair.
“And I want to tell you,” Jim replied simply.
Jim took another chair, which he drew up and set facing the cattleman. He was sitting with his back to the valley, which the verandah overlooked. Lightning had a full view of everything—the ranch, with its many buildings, and the range of the whole valley, with its surroundings of forest and mountain. Jim offered a cigar, but Lightning shook his head.
“Guess I’ll chew,” he said, and the other kicked a cuspidore towards him.
Lightning fumbled a piece of chewing plug from his hip pocket. He bit deeply into it, and Jim watched him. He knew he had a difficult talk before him, and meant to make no mistake.
“It’s queer, Lightning, how we can be rubbing shoulders with folk and not know about it,” he began. “That’s how it is between you and me and Molly. I’ve been in this valley a longish spell. I’ve been around outside quite a lot. But it wasn’t till more than three months back I knew of Marton’s farm, and of you and Molly. And yet ever since I’ve been around here I’ve had in mind a great big hope that some day I’d locate a boy called George Marton, who had a daughter, and pay them both good for the help they once gave me. It was the sort of help a man can never forget. It was something that could never be paid for right. George Marton saved my life. He saved me when few would have wanted to save me. It wasn’t only my life he saved. It was something more than that. Sure enough, if it hadn’t been for him my body would have been poor sort of feed for timber wolves. But he saved me when he hadn’t a right to save me. And it was Molly’s hands that provided the food that kept my body going.”