"Nobody else didn't."
"Do you want the gruel? Take it quick, and lie down again; you'll lose strength sitting up."
"You'll have to feed me," he said, opening his mouth. "I'm too blamed weak to sit up without propping with my hands, and they don't seem very good supports. Look how that one is wobbling."
She sat down on the edge of the bed, and without a word placed the bowl in her lap and her arm round him. Then neither spoke as she filled the spoon and held it to his lips. She felt him trying to steady his arms to keep his weight from her.
"It's really good," he said, as she filled the spoon the second time, "I had no idea I was so hungry; you say you made it?"
"Yes; there now, I'll have to wipe your chin; you ought not to talk when you are eating."
For several minutes neither spoke. He finished the bowl of gruel and lay down again.
"I feel as mean as a dog," he said, as she rose and drew the cover over him; "here I am being nursed by the very fellow's sweetheart I tried my level best to do up."
She turned and placed the bowl on the table, and then went to the fire.
"I heard you were his girl last night," he went on. "Well, I'm glad I didn't kill him. I wouldn't have tried in anything but self-defence, for even if he did use a gun and knife, when I had none, he's got bulldog pluck, and plenty of it. Do you know, I felt like mashing the head of that sheriff for beating him like he did."