“I think—dying,” she remarked briefly in her thick English.
Jake’s pale eyes flickered at the words, but still he did not speak. Hugh went closer to look at him and saw that his hands and feet were clumsily wound with rags and that the dirty bandage had slipped down from one wrist, showing the angry discoloration of flesh that had been frozen. He asked Laughing Mary many questions, but received no answers but shakings of the head.
Finally he unbuckled his revolver, took off his cap and mackinaw and turned his attention to doing what he could for the helpless man. He had a feeling of intense repulsion when first he touched him, but none the less he bathed the swollen hands and feet and rebandaged them. He had a certain knack in such matters, inherited from his father and increased by such training as he had got in helping him. He set the filthy mass of rags in order to make some semblance of a bed; he built up the fire and showed the woman how to make civilized broth from the abundant deer’s meat in the storeroom.
