They found the wounded man lying in the front room upon a rudely extemporized couch of bear-skins, he having sternly declined the effeminacy of his wife's bedroom. In the possibility of a fatal termination to his wound, and in obedience to a grim frontier tradition, he had also refused to have his boots removed in order that he might "die with them on," as became his ancestral custom.
Johnny was therefore speedily made comfortable in the McKinstry bed, while Dr. Duchesne gave his whole attention to his more serious patient. The master glanced hurriedly around for Mrs.
McKinstry. She was not only absent from the room, but there seemed to be no suggestion of her presence in the house. To his greater surprise the hurried inquiry that rose to his lips was checked by a significant warning from the attendant. He sat down beside the now sleeping boy, and awaited the doctor's return with his mind wandering between the condition of the little sufferer and the singular revelation that had momentarily escaped his childish lips.
If Johnny had actually seen Seth fire at McKinstry, the latter's mysterious wound was accounted for--but not Seth's motive. The act was so utterly incomprehensible and inconsistent with Seth's avowed hatred of the master that the boy must have been delirious.
He was roused by the entrance of the surgeon. "It's not so bad as I thought," he said, with a reassuring nod. "It was a mighty close shave between a shattered bone and a severed artery, but we've got the ball, and he'll pull through in a week. By Jove! though--the old fire-eater was more concerned about finding the ball than living or dying! Go in there--he wants to see you. Don't let him talk too much. He's called in a lot of his friends for some reason or other--and there's a regular mass-meeting in there. Go in, and get rid of 'em. I'll look after baby Filgee--though the little chap will be all right again after another dressing."
The master cast a hurried look of relief at the surgeon, and re-entered the front room. It was filled with men whom the master instinctively recognized as his former adversaries. But they gave way before him with a certain rude respect and half abashed sympathy as McKinstry called him to his side. The wounded man grasped his hand. "Lift me up a bit," he whispered. The master assisted him with difficulty to his elbow.
"Gentlemen!" said McKinstry, with a characteristic wave of his crippled hand towards the crowd as he laid the other on the master's shoulder. "Ye heerd me talkin' a minit ago; ye heer me now. This yer young man as we've slipped up on and meskalkilated has told the truth--every time! Ye ken tie to him whenever and wherever ye want to. Ye ain't expected to feel ez I feel, in course, but the man ez goes back on HIM--quo'lls with me. That's all--and thanks for inquiring friends. Ye'll git now, boys, and leave him a minit with me."
The men filed slowly out, a few lingering long enough to shake the master's hand with grave earnestness, or half smiling, half abashed embarrassment. The master received the proffered reconciliation of these men, who but a few hours before would have lynched him with equal sincerity, with cold bewilderment. As the door closed on the last of the party he turned to McKinstry. The wounded man had sunk down again, but was regarding with drowsy satisfaction a leaden bullet he was holding between his finger and thumb.
"This yer shot, Mr. Ford," he said in a slow voice, whose weakness was only indicated by its extreme deliberation, "never kem from the gun I gave ye--and was never fired by you." He paused and then added with his old dull abstraction, "It's a long time since I've run agin anythin' that makes me feel more--kam."
In Mr. McKinstry's weak condition the master did not dare to make Johnny's revelation known to him, and contented himself by simply pressing his hand, but the next moment the wounded man resumed,--"That ball jest fits Seth's navy revolver--and the hound hes made tracks outer the country."
"But what motive could he have in attacking YOU at such a time?" asked the master.
"He reckoned that either I'd kill you and so he'd got shut of us both in that way, without it being noticed; or if I missed you, the others would hang YOU--ez they kalkilated to--for killing ME! The idea kem to him when he overheard you hintin' you wouldn't return my fire."
A shuddering conviction that McKinstry had divined the real truth passed over the master. In the impulse of the moment he again would have corroborated it by revealing Johnny's story, but a glance at the growing feverishness of the wounded man checked his utterance. "Don't talk of it now," he said hurriedly. "Enough for me to know that you acquit ME. I am here now only to beg you to compose yourself until the doctor comes back--as you seemed to be alone, and Mrs. McKinstry"--he stopped in awkward embarrassment.
