Girl in a Buckskin

carelessness was beyond endurance, and selecting a slender log began to shape a board for his leg. When she had finished the sun was almost overhead and she felt she had wasted a great deal of time. When she leaned over the man again and forced the bones of his leg back into place Mr. O’Hara gave one mighty gasp and lost consciousness again.
    This time she could not rouse him at all, so that it was an unconscious man that Becky dragged home behind her, like a dray horse pulling a load, and not even sixty bags of corn could have felt so dead in weight as Mr. Shane O’Hara.
     

Chapter Sixteen
     
     
     
    THE CAVE LOOKED A VERY SNUG HOLE AFTER A NIGHT IN the open. Only a few coals shone red in the fireplace but Becky needed no light to find her way. With almost the last breath in her body she half dragged, half carried Mr. O’Hara to Eseck’s pallet and let him fall on the hemlock. Then she lay down to rest and presently, feeling better, got up to fan the coals into a fire. The last of the venison she put into the kettle to cook and when this was done she sank down on the floor to drink a cup of cold tea.
    She was drinking the last dregs when she saw the man had opened his eyes. She watched him stare up at the black roots that laced the ceiling of the cave and saw his eyes run along the thread of blackberry leaves she had strung up to dry. He frowned at them, and then his gaze moved to the stone chimney that she had lately daubed with fresh clay, and his frown deepened as he saw the hearth, the kettle hung from a forked stick over the fire, the pile of kindling, the warming stones, and Eseck’s musket propped against the wall. Then his glance moved to her and for a moment they inspected each other frankly. “I wasn’t dead,” he said suddenly.
    She found nothing to say to this. He was not dead—yet.
    “Where are we?” he asked incredulously, with a nod at the walls.
    “In a cave in the valley of the Housatunnick.”
    He shook his head again. “But I was—somewhere else. In a ravine. Riding on ahead of the others when I saw them. Six or seven of them in war paint. I fired my musket to warn the others—and rode straight through the war party. The last I remember was my horse throwing me—no, not the last. I remember snow—and an open fire—and your face.”
    “You’re here now,” she said without expression. “Your leg is broken and you have the fever. I brought you here.” He shook his head again. “I never thought to see the day a wee lass like yourself could rescue an O’Hara. Who do you live with here?”
    Becky raised her chin at him defiantly. “I live alone.” His blue eyes widened but he said nothing. Questions were best left unsaid in the wilderness; indeed, there was little to ask, so obvious was it that she belonged elsewhere.
    “I’m a New Hampshire man,” he said. “Shane O’Hara is my name.”
    She nodded. “So you said.”
    “Did I? Aye, and raved a bit, too, no doubt. Well, a New Hampshire man I am and proud of it. Called out by the muster to catch a few red devils. Almost caught me but thanks to yourself they’ve not gotten O’Hara this time.”
    “You’re safe here,” she said.
    “Safe?” He narrowed his eyes at her thoughtfully. “Well, that may be,” he said noncommittally. “When I know where I am I’ll see for myself. I’m alive, anyway, and that’s more than I expected to be.”
    He closed his eyes again and promptly went to sleep. In the dim light of the cave Becky looked at this man she had rescued from the wolves, this man who had already filled the cave with more words than it had ever heard at one time from a man. His bigness gave him the appearance of a well-seasoned man but now that he slept she saw that he was not many years older than Eseck. He would be a man who laughed often, she thought, looking at the lines of his mouth. His eyes she knew to be a warm blue when open, and his lashes the envy of any girl. A scrawny half beard had grown along his chin during the last few days, leading her to guess he was usually clean-shaven, but the beard was all that was scrawny about the man. He seemed to fill the cave with his presence.
    “Do ye ken me now?” he said with a chuckle, his eyes still closed.
    Becky flushed. “I wondered what manner of man I’d dragged away from the catamounts.”
    “One of Ireland’s best,” he said, opening his eyes and looking at her with amusement. “And now before I sleep again what might your name