on the gun-hammer, and with sundry exclamations of sympathy proceed to bind
it up with strips torn from his own handkerchief.

"Snagged!" he echoed, as he noted how the great muscle of the thumb was
torn across. "I don't see how you ever done that on a gun-hammer. I've
nursed a good bit--I was in Cuby last year, an' I was detailed for juty in
the hospital more'n half my time," he went on, eagerly. "This here hand,
it's bad, 'cause it's torn. Ef you had a cut o' that size, now, you
wouldn't be payin' no 'tention to it. The looks o' this here reminds me o'
the tear one o' them there Mauser bullets makes--Gawd! but they rip the men
up shockin'!" He rambled on with uneasy volubility as he attended to the
wound. "You let me clean it, now. It'll hurt some, but it'll save ye
trouble after while. You set down on the bed. Where kin I git some water?"

"Thar's a spring round the turn in the cave thar--they's a go'd in it."

But Kerry took one of the tin cans, emptied and rubbed it nervously,
talking all the while--talking as though to prevent the other from
speaking, and with something more than the ordinary garrulity of the nurse.
"I got lost to-day," he volunteered, as he cleansed the wound skilfully and
drew its ragged lips together. "Gosh! but you tore that thumb up! You won't
hardly be able to do nothin' with that hand fer a spell. Yessir! I got
lost--that's what I did. One tree looks pretty much like another to me; and
one old rock it's jest the same as the next one. I reckon I've walked
twenty mile sence sunup."

He paused in sudden panic; but the other did not ask him whence he had
walked nor whither he was walking. Instead, he ventured, in his serious
tones, as the silence grew oppressive: "You're mighty handy 'bout this sort
o' thing. I reckon I'll have a tough time here alone till that hand heals."