"It--it unbuttons at the back," she stammered.

She felt his big inexperienced hand at work on the buttons, and soon her
dress was slipped over the injured shoulder. A little hiss escaped him as
the round white arm came to view, with a hideous black bruise around the
shoulder-joint. She stole one look at his face, and saw his perturbed
countenance surveying the injury.

"Move your arm a little--that way."

She did so with a groan.

"Good--there ain't nothin' broke."

He soaked the handkerchief in cold water and tied up the arm with
astonishing skill. Then he fashioned a sling with the other handkerchief,
and carefully bent her arm and tucked it inside the latter.

"How's that?"

She smiled gratefully.

"It seems much easier."

"Sure! It'll be fine in a day or two. You sit down here and I'll git some
tea."

Without waiting to see this order obeyed, he ran to the stove and poked
the fire into a blaze. The singing kettle began to boil, and a few minutes
later they were having tea.

She watched him carefully, and knew that the loss of the dogs was worrying
him. Yet he had made so light of that, and so much of her comparatively
trivial injury!

"About them dawgs, Angela?"

"Yes."

"It's kinder unfortunate, because grub's low and it's a hell of a way to
Dawson. I guess we'll have to pack up to-morrow and git going. We can do a
bit o' digging on the way back."

Her eyes shone strangely.

"It was all my fault, Jim."

"Bound to happen at times," he said. "Dawgs is the silliest things. See
here, you're worrying some over that, ain't you now?"

"I--I know what it means--to you."

"It don't mean nothin' so long as you didn't go over that cliff with 'em.
We'll make Dawson all right. I've bin up against bigger trouble than
this."

He jumped up and commenced vigorously to wash up the cups and saucers,
talking rapidly all the while and refusing to allow her to lend a hand.

"I done this for years, back there in Medicine Bow," he said. "Gee, them
were times! There wasn't water enough to make tea with in the summer. Me
and my two chums used to buy a pail of water for twenty dollars. It had to
serve the three of us a whole day. We washed in it, and then drank
it----"

"Ugh!"

"Wal, if we'd drank it first we couldn't have washed in it after. I guess
them chaps had logic. When we _did_ strike a spring, gold wasn't in it for
excitement. It was like finding heaven. Hookey swore he'd never touch
whisky again, a