Obediently he held out to her the one that happened to be nearest. It
was the unwounded one. An angry spark gleamed in her eye.

"This is no time to be fresh. Give me the other."

"Yes, ma'am." he answered, with deceptive meekness.

Without comment, she turned back the sleeve which came to the wrist
gauntlet, and discovered a furrow ridged by a rifle bullet. It was a
clean flesh wound, neither deep nor long enough to cause him trouble
except for the immediate loss of blood. To her inexperience it looked
pretty bad.

"A plumb scratch," he explained.

She took the kerchief from her neck, and tied it about the hurt, then
pulled down the sleeve and buttoned it over the brown forearm. All this
she did quite impersonally, her face free of the least sympathy.

"Thank you, ma'am. You're a right friendly enemy."

"It isn't a matter of friendship at all. One couldn't leave a wounded
jack rabbit in pain," she retorted coldly, taking up the trail again.

There was room for two abreast, and he chose to ride beside her. "So you
tied me up because it was your Christian duty," he soliloquized aloud.
"Just the same as if I had been a mangy coyote that was suffering."

"Exactly."