His next thought was that bandages and wraps would be needed for her cut and to make her a bed. Instantly he remembered the shawl and the big auto-robe that he had seen caught among the trees.
"I must have those at once!" he realized. "When the machine went over the edge, they were thrown out, just as the girl was. A miracle she wasn"t carried down, with the car, and crushed or burned to death down there by the river, with that poor devil of a chauffeur!"
Laying her down in the soft gra.s.s along the wall, he ran back to where the wraps were, and, detaching them from the branches, quickly regained the road once more.
"Now for the old sugar-house in the maple-grove," said he. "Poor shelter, but the best to be had. Thank heaven it"s fair weather, and warm!"
The task was awkward, to carry both the girl and the bulky robes, but Gabriel was equal to it She had by now regained some measure of rationality; and though very pale and shaken, manifested her nerve and courage by no longer weeping or asking questions.
Instead, she lay in his arms, eyes closed, with the blood stiffening on her face; and let him bear her whither he would. She seemed to sense his strength and mastery, his tender care and complete command of the situation. And, like a hurt and tired child, outworn and suffering, she yielded herself, unquestioningly, to his ministrations.
Thus Gabriel, the discharged, blacklisted, outcast rebel and proletarian, bore in his arms of mercy and compa.s.sion the only daughter of old Isaac Flint, his enemy, Flint the would-be master of the world.
Thus he bore the woman who had been betrothed to "Tiger" Waldron, unscrupulous and cruel partner in that scheme of dominance and enslavement.
Such was the meeting of this woman and this man. Thus, in his arms, he carried her to the old sugar-house.
And far below, the mighty river gleamed, unheeding the tragedy that had been enacted on its sh.o.r.es, unmindful of the threads of destiny even now being spun by the swift shuttles of Fate.
In the branches, above Gabriel and Catherine, birdsong and golden sunlight seemed to prophesy. But what this message might be, neither the woman nor the man had any thought or dream.
CHAPTER XV.
AN HOUR AND A PARTING.
Arriving at the sugar-house, tired yet strong, Gabriel put the wounded girl down, quickly raked together a few armfuls of dead leaves, in the most sheltered corner of the ramshackle structure, and laid the heavy auto-robe upon this improvised bed. Then he helped his patient to lie down, there, and bade her wait till he got water to wash and dress her cut.
"Don"t worry about anything," he rea.s.sured her. "You"re alive, and that"s the main thing, now. I"ll see you through with this, whatever happens. Just keep calm, and don"t let anything distress you!"
She looked at him with big, anxious eyes--eyes where still the full light of understanding had not yet returned.
"It--it all happened so suddenly!" she managed to articulate. "He was drunk--the chauffeur. The car ran away. Where is it? Where is Herrick--the man?"
"I don"t know," Gabriel lied promptly and with force. Not for worlds would he have excited her with the truth. "Never you mind about that.
Just lie still, now, till I come back!"
Already, among the rusty utensils that had served for the "sugaring-off," the previous spring, he had routed out a tin pail. He kicked a quant.i.ty of leaves in under the sheet-iron open stove, flung some sticks atop of them, and started a little blaze. Warm water, he reflected, would serve better than cold in removing that clotting blood and dressing the hurt.
Then, saying no further word, but filled with admiration for the girl"s pluck, he seized the pail and started for water.
"Nerve?" he said to himself, as he ran down the road toward a little brook he remembered having crossed, a few hundred yards to southward.
"Nerve, indeed! Not one complaint about her own injuries! Not a word of lamentation! If this isn"t a thoroughbred, whoever or whatever she is, I never saw one!"
He returned, presently, with the pail nearly full of cold and sparkling water. Ignoring rust, he made her drink as deeply as she would, and then set a dipperful of water on the now hot sheet-iron.
Then, tearing a strip off the shawl, he made ready for his work as an amateur physician.
"Tell me," said he, kneeling there beside her in the hut which was already beginning to grow dusk, "except for this cut on your forehead, do you feel any injury? Think you"ve got any broken bones? See if you can move your legs and arms, all right."
She obeyed.
"Nothing broken, I guess," she answered. "What a miracle! Please leave me, now. I can wash my own hurt. Go--go find Herrick! He needs you worse than I do!"
"No he doesn"t!" blurted Gabriel with such conviction that she understood.
"You mean?" she queried, as he brought the dipper of now tepid water to her side. "He--he"s dead?"
He hesitated to answer.
"Dead! Yes, I understand!" she interpreted his silence. "You needn"t tell me. I know!"
He nodded.
"Yes," said he. "Your chauffeur has paid the penalty of trying to drive a six-cylinder car with alcohol. Now, think no more of him! Here, let me see how badly you"re cut."
"Let me sit up, first," she begged. "I--I"m not hurt enough to be lying here like--like an invalid!"
She tried to rise, but with a strong hand on her shoulder he forced her back. She shuddered, with the horror of the chauffeur"s death strong upon her.
"Please lie still," he begged. "You"ve had a terrific shock, and have lived through it by a miracle, indeed. You"re wounded and still bleeding. You _must_ be quiet!"
The tone in his voice admitted no argument. Submissive now to his greater strength, this daughter of wealth and power lay back, closed her tired eyes and let the revolutionist, the proletarian, minister to her.
Dipping the piece of shawl into the warm water, he deftly moistened the dried blood on her brow and cheek, and washed it all away. He cleansed her sullied hair, as well, and laid it back from the wound.
"Tell me if I hurt you, now," he bade, gently as a woman. "I"ve got to wash the cut itself."
She answered nothing, but lay quite still. And so, hardly wincing, she let him lave the jagged wound that stretched from her right temple up into the first tendrils of the glorious red-gold hair.
"H"m!" thought Gabriel, as he now observed the cut with close attention. "I"m afraid there"ll have to be some st.i.tches taken here!"
But of this he said nothing. All he told her was: "Nothing to worry over. You"ll be as good as new in a few days. As a miracle, it"s _some_ miracle!"
Having completed the cleansing of the cut, he fetched his knapsack and produced a clean handkerchief, which he folded and laid over the wound.
This pad he secured in place by a long bandage cut from the edge of the shawl and tied securely round her shapely head.
"There," said he, surveying his improvisation with considerable satisfaction. "Now you"ll do, till we can undertake the next thing.
Sorry I haven"t any brandy to give you, or anything of that sort. The fact is, I don"t use it, and have none with me. How do you feel, now?"
She opened her eyes and looked up at him with the ghost of a smile on her pale lips.
"Oh, much, much better, thank you!" she answered. "I don"t need any brandy. I"m--awfully strong, really. In a little while I"ll be all right. Just give me a little more water, and--and tell me--who are you?"
"Who am I?" he queried, holding up her head while she drank from the tin cup he had now taken from his knapsack. "I? Oh, just an out-of-work.
n.o.body of any interest to you!"