Then he removed his boots by the simple method of slitting the legs with Buck's knife, bared his broken leg in the same manner, swallowed again from the bottle, braced himself mentally and physically, gritted his teeth, and went doggedly to work.
A man never knows just how much he can endure or what he can do until he is making his last stand in the fight for self-preservation. Ward had no mind to lie there and die of blood-poisoning, for instance, and broken bones do not set themselves. So, sweating and swearing with the agony of it, he set his leg and bound the splints in place, and thanked the Lord it was a straight, clean break and that the flesh was not torn.
Then he dropped back upon the bed and didn't care whether he lived or not.
Followed days of fever, through which Ward lived crazily and lost count of the hours as they passed. Days when he needed good nursing, and did not get so much as a drink of water, except through pain and effort. Hours when he cursed Buck Olney and thought he had him bound to the chair in the cabin. Hours when he watched for him, gun in hand, through the window beside the bunk.
It was while he was staring glassy-eyed through the window that his attention wandered to the big, white bowl of stewed prunes. They looked good, with their shiny, succulent plumpness standing up like little wrinkled islands in the small sea of brown juice. Ward reached out with his left hand--he was gripping the gun in his right, ready for Buck when he showed up--and picked a prune out of the dish. It was his first morsel of food since the morning when he had tried to eat his breakfast while Buck Olney stared at him with the furtive malevolence of a trapped animal. That was three days ago. The prune tasted even better than it looked. Ward picked out another and another.
He forgot his feverish hallucination that Buck Olney was waiting outside there until he caught Ward off his guard. He lay back on his pillow, his fingers relaxed upon the gun. He closed his eyes and lay quiet. Perhaps he slept a little.
When he opened his eyes he was in the dark. The window was a transparent black square sprinkled with stars. Ward watched them awhile. He thought of Billy Louise; he would like to know how her mother was getting along and how much longer they expected to stay in Boise. He thought of the times she had kissed him--twice, and of her own accord. She would not have done it, either time, if he had asked her; he knew her well enough for that. She must be left free to obey the impulses of that big, brave heart of hers. A girl with a smaller soul and one less fine would have blushed and simpered and acted the fool generally at the mere thought of kissing a man of her own accord. Billy Louise had been tender as Christ Himself, and as sweet and pure. Was there another girl like her in the world? Ward looked at the stars and smiled. There was never such another, he told himself. And she "liked him to pieces"; she had said so. Ward laughed a little in spite of his throbbing leg. "Some other girl would have said, 'Ward, I lo-ove you,'" he grinned. "Wilhemina is different."