Page:James Hopper--Caybigan.djvu/334

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CAYBIGAN
318

carriers aside and herself took a pole. Finally he lay upon her little cot.

She tore open the khaki blouse with its spot of rust above the heart. The blue shirt beneath was soggy and dripping. With her scissors she cut off both garments, then washed the bared flesh. But there was something which would not wash off—a little bluish spot from which, constantly reforming, red lines radiated like the cracks of a broken pane.

He opened his eyes just then; they glared wild for a moment, settled upon her, softened, then with a sharp intake of breath he was unconscious again. She noticed that his right shoulder had a strange, caved-in appearance. She felt the joint lightly. The shoulder was dislocated.

Her lips tightened. That first must be set, for from it he suffered. She had heard of it as something very difficult. She was a girl, weak, lone, ignorant, and yet it must be done.

She called Vincente and together they tried to draw the arm back into its socket. It was sickening work. At every effort the strong shoulder muscles contracted in reflex resistance, and they were helpless as babes.

She desisted and thought, with an exasperated concentration of all her faculties. A snatch of chance