She did not ask him further.  If she had any curiosity, she did not betray it; if she had any suspicion of what he meant, she did not show it.

Sam returned to where Dick lay.

“Look here, Sam,” said he, “this comes of—­”

“Shut up!” said Sam again.  “Look here, you, you’ve made trouble enough.  Now you’re laid up, and you’re laid up for a good long while.  This ain’t any ordinary leg break.  It means three months, and it may mean that you’ll never walk straight again.  It’s got to be treated mighty careful, and you’ve got to do just what I tell you.  You just behave yourself.  It wasn’t anybody’s fault.  That girl had nothing to do with it.  If you weren’t a great big fool you’d know it.  We both got to take care of you.  Now you treat her decent, and you treat me decent.  It’s time you came off.”

He said it as though he meant it.  Nevertheless it was with the most elaborate tenderness that he, assisted by May-may-gwan, carried Dick to his new quarters.  But in spite of the utmost care, the transportation was painful.  The young man was left with no strength.  The rest of the afternoon he dozed in a species of torpor.

Sam’s energy toward permanent establishment did not relax.  He took a long tramp in search of canoe birches, from which at last he brought back huge rolls of thick bark.  These he and the girl sewed together in overlapping seams, using white spruce-roots for the purpose.  The result was a water-tight covering for the wigwam.  A pile of firewood was the fruit of two hours’ toil.  In the meantime May-may-gwan had caught some fish with the hook and line and had gathered some berries.  She made Dick a strong broth of dried meat.  At evening the old man and the girl ate their meal together at the edge of the bluff overlooking the broil of the river.  They said little, but somehow the meal was peaceful, with a content unknown in the presence of the impatient and terrible young man.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

During the days that ensued a certain intimacy sprang up between Sam Bolton and the Indian girl.  At first their talk was brief and confined to the necessities.  Then matters of opinion, disjointed, fragmentary, began to creep in.  Finally the two came to know each other, less by what was actually said, than by the attitude of mind such confidences presupposed.  One topic they avoided.  Sam, for all his shrewdness, could not determine to what degree had persisted the young man’s initial attraction for the girl.  Of her devotion there could be no question, but in how much it depended on the necessity of the moment lay the puzzle.  Her demeanor was inscrutable.  Yet Sam came gradually to trust to her loyalty.