Next morning he was still unconscious. He suffered intense pain, so that Jim or the Halfbreed had to be ever by him. I, for my part, refused to go near. Indeed, I watched with a growing hatred his slow recovery. I was sorry, sorry. I wished he had died.
At last he opened his eyes, and feebly he asked where he was. After the Halfbreed had told him, he lay silent awhile.
"I've had a close call," he groaned. Then he went on triumphantly: "I guess the Wild hasn't got the bulge on me yet. I can give it another round."
He began to pick up rapidly, and there in that narrow cabin I sat within a few feet of him, and beheld him grow strong again. I suppose my face must have showed my bitter hate, for often I saw him watching me through half-closed eyes, as if he realised my feelings. Then a sneering smile would curve his lips, a smile of satanic mockery. Again and again I thought of Berna. Fear and loathing convulsed me, and at times a great rage burned in me so that I was like to kill him.
"Seems to me everything's healing up but that hand," said the Halfbreed. "I guess it's too far gone. Gangrene's setting in. Say, Locasto, looks like you'll have to lose it."
Locasto had been favouring me with a particularly sardonic look, but at these words the sneer was wiped out, and horror crowded into his eyes.
"Lose my hand—don't tell me that! Kill me at once! I don't want to be maimed. Lose my hand! Oh, that's terrible! terrible!"
He gazed at the discoloured flesh. Already the stench of him was making us sick, but this hand with its putrid tissues was disgusting to a degree.
"Yes," said the Halfbreed, "there's the line of the gangrene, and it's spreading. Soon mortification will extend all up your arm, then you'll die of blood poison. Locasto, better let me take off that hand. I've done jobs like that before. I'm a handy man, I am. Come, let me take it off."
"Heavens! you're a cold-blooded butcher. You're going to kill me, between you all. You're in a plot leagued against me, and that long-faced fool over there's at the bottom of it. Damn you, then, go on and do what you want."