We had become accustomed to these sudden inroads of misfortune, so he was carried upstairs to the front Guest Room, fortunately just then empty.  The Poles turned over to me the heavy package found with him, stolidly requested a note to the Boss explaining their necessary tardiness, and hurried away.  They had done what they had to do, and they had no further interest in him.  Nobody had any interest in one of the unknown tramps who got themselves killed or crippled at Dead Man’s Crossin’.

The fellow was shockingly injured and we had some strenuous days and nights with him, for that which had been a leg had to come off at the knee; he had lain in the cold for some hours, he had sustained a frightful shock, and he had lost considerable blood.  I am sure that in the hands of any physician less skilled and determined than Westmoreland he must have gone out.  But Westmoreland, with his jaw set, followed his code and fenced with death for this apparently worthless and forfeited life, using all his skill and finesse to outwit the great Enemy; in spite of which, so attenuated was the man’s chance that we were astonished when he turned the corner—­very, very feebly—­and we didn’t have to place another pine box in the potter’s field, alongside other unmarked mounds whose occupants were other unknown men, grim causes of Dead Man’s Crossin’s sinister name.

The effects of the merciful drugs that had kept him quiet in time wore away.  Our man woke up one forenoon clear-headed, if hollow-eyed and mortally weak.  He looked about the unfamiliar room with wan curiosity, then his eyes came to Clelie and myself, but he did not return the greetings of either.  He just stared; he asked no questions.  Presently, very feebly, he tried to move,—­and found himself a cripple.  He fell back upon his pillow, gasping.  A horrible scream broke from his lips—­a scream of brute rage and mortal fear, as of a trapped wild beast.  He began to revile heaven and earth, the doctor, myself.  Clelie, clapping her hands over her outraged ears, fled as if from fiends.  Indeed, never before nor since have I heard such a frightful, inhuman power of profanity, such hideous oaths and threats.  When breath failed him he lay spent and trembling, his chest rising and falling to his choking gasps.

“You had better be thankful your life is spared you, young man,” I said a trifle sharply, my nerves being somewhat rasped; for I had helped Westmoreland through more than one dreadful night, and I had sat long hours by his pillow, waiting for what seemed the passing of a soul.

He glared.  “Thankful?” he screamed, “Thankful, hell!  I’ve got to have two good legs to make any sort of a getaway, haven’t I?  Well, have I got ’em?  I’m down and out for fair, that’s what!  Thankful?  You make me sick!  Honest to God, when you gas like that I feel like bashing in your brain, if you’ve got any!  You and your thankfulness!” He turned his quivering face and stared at the wall, winking.  I wondered, heartsick, if I had ever seen a more hopelessly unprepossessing creature.