Wolfe understood fully. He touched the now quiet figure on the ground with the toe of his boot.
"Get up!" he ordered.
Mayfield rose, his right arm hanging limp at his side. Wolfe ripped the shirtsleeve from the injured member, folded one of his own white handkerchiefs and placed it over the wound, and used the torn-out sleeve for a bandage. Mayfield, who was fast recovering from his fit of weakness, watched every move of the deft, strong fingers with old hatred in his lusterless, uncanny eyes.
The first-aid work was barely finished when the high-pitched voice of Granny Wolfe came from a point a few rods above:
"La, la, la! And so ye got him, durn him, did ye, Grandpap Bill Singleton!"
She limped down to them, her little dog, Wag, happy at her heels.
"Ye needn't to mind a-tellin' me about it, Bill Singleton," she chattered, "a-cause I already know, me a-bein' a good guesser. And so the rawzum-chawin' devil's pup—was a goin' to layway Little Buck, was he? You, Cat-Eye Mayfield, quit that a-lookin' at me like as ef ye could bite my whole head off."
She turned toward her grandson, who greeted her gravely.
"I tried to find you before I left," he said, and then told her of his father's change of heart.