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He heard another door, and voices, and quick footsteps again, coming his way, and he was waiting eagerly, half on his elbow, when into his room came Nepapinas and Carmin Fanchet. And again he saw the glory of something in the woman's face.
"Nepapinas says that you may have a bit of boiled fish for supper," she assured him. "You know I don't mean that. I want to know why you shot me, and what you think you are going to do with me." "I shot you by mistake and I don't know just what to do with you," she said, looking at him tranquilly, but with what he thought was a growing shadow of perplexity in her eyes.
His eyes must have burned strangely as he stared at her, but it did not change that light in her own, and her hands were wonderfully gentle as she helped Nepapinas raise him so that he was sitting up straight, with pillows at his back. "It doesn't hurt so much now, does it?" she asked, her voice low with a mothering tenderness. He shook his head. "No. What is the matter?"
And now, even my Carmin loves you for bringing me out of the fire But you are not listening!" David was looking past him toward the door, and St. Pierre smiled when he saw the look that was in his face. "Nepapinas!" he called loudly. "Nepapinas!" In a moment there was shuffling of feet outside, and Nepapinas came in. St.
Pierre held out his two great, bandaged hands, and David met them with his own, one bandaged and one free. Not a word was spoken between them, but their eyes were the eyes of men between whom had suddenly come the faith and understanding of a brotherhood as strong as life itself. Then Nepapinas wheeled St.
To his surprise there was no sign of his hurt except a slightly inflamed spot above his temple. He stared at Nepapinas, and there was no need of the question that was in his mind. The old Indian understood, and his dried-up face cracked and crinkled in a grin. "Bullet hit a piece of rock, an' rock, not bullet, hit um head," he explained.
A fierce-blooded offspring, he thought, one like Cleopatra herself, not afraid to kill and equally quick to make amends when there was a mistake. There came the quiet opening of the cabin door to break in upon his thought. He hoped it was Jeanne Marie-Anne returning to him. It was Nepapinas. The old Indian stood over him for a moment and put a cold, claw-like hand to his forehead.
And there were basins of water, and white strips of linen ready for use, and a pile of medicated cotton, and all sorts of odds and ends that one might apply to ease the agonies of a dying man, And beyond the table, huddled in so small a heap that he was almost hidden by it, was Nepapinas himself, disappointment writ in his mummy-like face as his beady eyes rested on David.
He did not see the age-old face of Nepapinas "The Wandering Bolt of Lightning" as the bent and tottering Cree called upon all his eighty years of experience to bring him back to life. And he did not see Bateese, stolid-faced, silent, nor the dead-white face and wide-open, staring eyes of Jeanne Marie-Anne Boulain as her slim, white fingers worked with the old medicine man's.
Somewhere over there, in an open spot where the sun was blazing, Jeanne Marie-Anne was probably drying herself after the night of storm. There was but little doubt in his mind that she was already heaping the ignominy of blame upon him. That was the woman of it. A knock at his door drew him about. It was a light, quick TAP, TAP, TAP not like the fist of either Bateese or Nepapinas.
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