"Hush," I said angrily; "she's not dead, only stunned, I hope," and I gathered handfuls of snow, which I rubbed gently upon her forehead and cheek, and then forced between her lips a few drops of gin from my pocket flask. Seeing that she swallowed the gin mechanically, I poured a good spoonful upon her tongue, and chafed her hands vigorously till she opened her eyes and recognized the faces bending over her.
"Where's the bear, Donald?" she asked, as quietly as if she had just wakened from a vivid dream.
"Dead," I answered cheerfully; "you shall have the skin for a rug."
"But I didn't kill him," in disappointed tones. "I got frightened and aimed badly—I'd never do for a man, after all."
"You'd make a better man than Thomas; he began to cry as soon as he saw you were hurt, and you haven't yet complained of the scratches the bear gave you."
"They sting some," she said with a grimace, putting her hand to her wound, and sliding it down to her shoulder. "Why, Donald, my clothes are torn," and a faint flush tinged her cheeks, while she tried to sit up and to pull her shredded garment together.
"The bear bit you there; it is well mother made you put on this buckskin jacket over your pelisse. Does the place hurt you much?" and I knelt beside her to examine her shoulder more carefully.
"It aches, while the hurt on my neck smarts," and she flushed again, and shrank from the touch of my fingers on her bare flesh.
And I, too, was suddenly embarrassed, while a new thrill went through me. "The shoulder bone is not crushed," I said, after a careful examination which gave Ellen some pain, "nor is the wound very deep; doubtless, though, it will hurt a good deal, besides making your shoulder stiff and helpless for a while. We must bandage the wound somehow, till we can get home, and we must find a way to exclude the cold air from it."
Thomas, who had sat by, flushed and silent since I had chidden him for blubbering, picked up the torn jacket I had stripped from Ellen's shoulders, and disappeared behind the tree. Presently he came back with his own flannel shirt and a bunch of linen strips across his arm, himself reclad in the torn jacket, which had been pinned together, after some sort, with small thorns.