“What? I saw nothing.”
“Look this way.” He pointed through the darkness. “Watch for the next flash.”
They had not long to wait. In a moment another bolt lit up the prairie in all directions.
“It is a building—an old house, I think,” she said. “I can walk that far. It will be better than the prairie.”
With much effort they dragged their way toward the building. It proved to be a little log structure, built by a homesteader in the early days. The windows were gone and the door was off its hinges, but inside was comparatively dry. In an inner pocket Gardiner found some matches that gave promise of a light. He struck one; it flared for an instant and was whipped out by the breeze. But it had revealed a partition running through the middle of the building. They groped their way around it and found a more protected corner. Here he struck another match. It burned steadily, disclosing a little, low room, papered with heavy building paper. Against the logs of the outer wall tar paper had been nailed, but years of damp and wind had loosened this pioneer protection, and the paper now hung in long shreds or curled in uncertain rolls about the bottom of the walls. The floor was decayed and broken through in several places, as though cattle had walked on the rotten boards, and from the sod roof the water trickled in little streamlets.
With a sigh of relief Miss Vane seated herself in a corner. “This is better than outside at least,” she said.
“Yes, indeed,” Gardiner agreed. “By means of this tar paper and some of these broken boards we will start a fire. We can surely find water enough to hold it in check.”
In a few minutes he had a little fire burning. Part of a broken crock was found, and with this filled with water he stood guard over man’s best servant.
As the fire flickered up its light fell on the face of the girl, pale and drawn with pain. The young man looked at her helplessly, and then ventured, “You are suffering, Miss Vane. I wonder if you would let me be surgeon?”
“Yes,” she answered, simply.