Me Smith

where she sewed, her head pillowed on her rag-rug.
    “Mother! Why, what’s the matter with your hand? It’s swelled!”
    “I heap sick, Susie!” she moaned. “My arm aches me.”
    “Look!” cried Susie, who had turned back her sleeve. “Her arm is black—a purple black, and it’s swellin’ up!”
    “Oh, I heap sick!”
    “What did you do to your arm, Mother? Did you have the bandage off?”
    “Yes, it come off, and I pin him up,” said Ling, who was standing by.
    A paroxysm of pain seized the woman, and she writhed.
    “It looks exactly like a rattlesnake bite! I saw a fellow once that was bit in the ankle, and it swelled up and turned a color like that,” declared Susie in horror. “Mother, you haven’t been foolin’ with snakes, or been bit?”
    The woman shook her head.
    “I no been bit,” she groaned, and her eyes had in them the appealing look of a sick spaniel.
    Dora and Susie helped her to her room, and though they tried every simple remedy of which they had ever heard, to reduce the rapidly swelling arm, all seemed equally unavailing. The woman’s convulsions hourly became more violent and frequent, while her arm was frightful to behold—black, as it was, from hand to shoulder with coagulated blood.
    “If only we had an idea of the cause!” cried Dora, distracted.
    “Mother, can’t you imagine anything that would make your arm bad like this? Try to think.”
    But though drops of perspiration stood on the woman’s forehead, and her grip tore the pillow, she obstinately shook her head.
    “I be better pretty soon,” was all she would say, and tried to smile at Susie.
    “If only some one would come!” Dora went to the open window often and listened for Ralston’s voice or McArthur’s—the latter having gone for his mail.
    The strain of watching the woman’s suffering told on both of the girls, and the night by her bedside seemed centuries long. Toward morning the paroxysms appeared to reach a climax and then to subside. They were of shorter duration, and the intervals between were longer.
    “She’s better, I’m sure,” Dora said hopefully, but Susie shook her head.
    “I don’t think so; she’s worse. There’s that look behind, back of her eyes—that dead look—can’t you see it? And it’s in her face, too. I don’t know how to say what I mean, but it’s there, and it makes me shiver like cold.” The girl looked in mingled awe and horror at the first human being she ever had seen die.
    Unable to endure the strain any longer, Dora went into the fresh air, and Susie dropped on her knees by the bedside and took her mother’s limp hand in both of hers.
    “Oh, Mother,” she begged pitifully, “say something. Don’t go away without sayin’ something to Susie!”
    With an effort of will, the woman slowly opened her dull eyes and fixed them upon the child’s face.
    “Yas,” she breathed; “I want to say something.”
    The words came slowly and thickly.
    “I no—get well.”
    “Oh, Mother!”
    Unheeding the wail, perhaps not hearing it, she went on, stopping often between words:
    “I steal—from you—my little girl. I bad woman, Susie. It is right I die. I take de money—out of de bank dat MacDonald leave us—to give to Smith. De hold-ups steal de money on—de road. I have de bad heart—Susie—to do dat. I know now.”
    “You mustn’t talk like that, Mother!” cried Susie, gripping her hand convulsively. “You thought you’d get it again and put it back. You didn’t mean to steal from me. I know all about it. And I’ve got the money. Mr. Ralston found a check you had thrown away—you’d signed your name on it in the wrong place. When we saw the date, and what a lot of money it was, and found you had gone to town, we guessed the rest. It was easy to see Smith in that. So we held you up, and got it back. We knew there was no danger to anybody, but, of course, we felt bad to worry and frighten you.”
    “I’m glad,” said the woman simply. She had no strength or breath or time to spare. “Dey’s more. I tell you—I kill Smith—if he lie. He lie. He bull-dog white man. I make de strong medicine to kill him—and I get de poison in my arm when de bandage slip. Get de bottles and de knife behind de lookin’-glass—I show you.”
    Susie quickly did as she was bid.
    “De lemon bottle is de love-charm of de Sioux. One teaspoonful—no more, Little Coyote’s woman say. De other bottle is de bad medicine. Be careful. Smith—make fool—of