The Cow Puncher | Page 4

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 gave the faintest intimation that a strain of fundamental relationship links the sexes. By the western wall was a table, with numerous dishes; and to the wall itself had been nailed wooden boxes--salmon and tomato cases--now containing an assortment of culinary supplies. A partially used sack of flour, and another of rolled oats, leaned against the wall, and a trap-door in the floor gave promise of further resources beneath. There was a window in the east and another in the west, both open and unscreened; myriads of flies gave the only touch of life to the dismal scene.
Irene looked it all over, then leaned against the window sill and laughed. Her father