The Cow Puncher | Page 4

with his
heel as he passed. A musty smell fell on the senses of the girl as she
entered, and she was conscious of the buzzing of innumerable flies. A
partition from east to west divided the house, and another partition
from north to south divided the northern half. In the north-east room
they set the stretcher on the floor.
"Now," Said the boy, "I'm goin' for the doctor. It's forty miles to town,
and it'll likely be mornin' before I'm back, but I'll sure burn the trail.
You'll have to make the best of it," he continued, impersonally
addressing the much-spotted window. "There's grub in the house, and
you won't starve--that is, if you can cook." (This was evidently for
Irene. There was a note in it that suggested the girl might have her
limitations.) "Dig in to anythin' in sight. And I hope your father's leg
won't hurt very much." Irene wondered afterwards why the hope
concerning her father should have been expressed to her. Did he
already feel--what was it?--better acquainted with her?
"Oh, I'll stand it," said Doctor Hardy, with some cheerfulness. "We
medical men become accustomed to suffering--in other people. You are
very kind. My daughter may remain in this room, I suppose? There is
no one else?"
"No one but the old man," he answered. "He's asleep in the next room,
safe till mornin'. I'll be back by that time. That's my bed," indicating a
corner. "Make yourselves at home." He lounged through the door and
they heard his spurs clanking across the hard earth.
The girl's first thought was to assure as much comfort for her father as
the circumstances would permit. She removed his boot and stocking,
and, under his direction, slit the leg of his trousers above the injury. It
was bleeding a little. In the large room of the house she found a pail
with water, and she bathed the wound, wiping it with her handkerchief,
and mingling a tear or two with the warm blood that dripped from it.
"You're good stuff," her father said, pressing the fingers of her

unoccupied hand. "Now, if you could find a clean cloth to bandage it--"
She looked about the place, somewhat hopelessly. Her expedition to the
main part of the house, when she had found the water pail, had not
reassured her as to the housekeeping of the Eldens. Her father read her
perplexity.
"It seems as though you would be in charge here for awhile, Reenie,"
he said, "so you will save time by getting acquainted at once with your
equipment. Look the house over and see what you have to work with."
"Well, I can commence here," she answered. "This is Dave's room. I
suppose I should say Mr. Elden's, but--what was it he said about
'mistering'? It would be splendid if it were cleaned up," she continued,
with kindling enthusiasm. "These bare logs, bare floors, bare
rafters--we've got back to essentials, anyway. And that's his bed." She
surveyed a framework of spruce poles, on which lay an old straw
mattress and some very grey blankets. "I suppose he is very tired when
he goes to bed," she said, drolly, as though that could be the only
explanation of sleep amid such surroundings. "And the walls give one a
clue to the artistic side of his nature." A poster advertising a summer
fair, with a prodigious bull occupying the centre of the picture, hung on
one wall, and across from it a lithograph of a young woman, with very
bright clothing and very alabaster skin and very decollete costume
tendered a brand of beer with the assurance that it goes to the spot. "I
ought to drape it," she said, and the curl on her lip showed smooth
white teeth.
"I was forgetting I have to find a bandage for you," she suddenly
remembered. "There's his trunk; it might produce something, but we
will save it for a last resort. Now I will explore this main room, which I
suppose is the kitchen, dining room, living room, everything."
In the south end of the larger room stood a fireplace, crudely made of
slabs of native rock. The fires of many winters had crumbled the rock,
so that it had fallen in in places, and was no longer employed for its
original purpose. A very rusty and greasy stove now occupied the space
immediately in front of the fireplace, the stove-pipe leading into the

ample but tottering chimney. Near the stove was a bench supporting a
tin wash-basin, a wooden pail, and certain fragments of soap--evidently
all the equipment necessary for the simple ablutions of the Elden
household. The remnant of a grain bag, with many evidences of use and
abuse, performed the functions of towel, and a broken piece of
looking-glass