Still he did not speak. He looked down at the slit in the cloth and raised his hand towards it, but his arm fell limply and he swayed from side to side.
"Are you hurt?" asked Mrs. Floyd, anxiously.
"I think not," he said; "but maybe I am, a little."
Harriet opened his coat and screamed, "Oh, mother, he's cut! Look at the blood!"
He tried to button his coat, but could not use his fingers. "Only a scratch," he said.
"But your clothes are wet with blood," Harriet insisted, as she pointed to his trousers.
He stooped and felt them. They were damp and heavy. Then he raised his heel in his right boot, and let it down again.
"It's full," he said, with a sickly smile. "I reckon I have lost some blood. Why—why, I didn't feel it."
Martin Worthy, the storekeeper, ran across from the jail ahead of the others. Hearing Westerfelt's remark, he cried:
"My Lord! you must go inside an' lie down; fix a place, Miss Harriet, an' send fer a doctor, quick!"