additional guys of odd
pieces of rope and bailing-wire.

When the first splashes of rain arrived Saxon was delighted. Billy
betrayed little interest. His finger was hurting too much, he said.
Neither he nor Saxon could make anything of it, and both scoffed at the
idea of a felon.

"It might be a run-around," Saxon hazarded.

"What's that?"

"I don't know. I remember Mrs. Cady had one once, but I was too small.
It was the little finger, too. She poulticed it, I think. And I remember
she dressed it with some kind of salve. It got awful bad, and finished
by her losing the nail. After that it got well quick, and a new nail
grew out. Suppose I make a hot bread poultice for yours."

Billy declined, being of the opinion that it would be better in the
morning. Saxon was troubled, and as she dozed off she knew that he was
lying restlessly wide awake. A few minutes afterward, roused by a heavy
blast of wind and rain on the canvas, she heard Billy softly groaning.
She raised herself on her elbow and with her free hand, in the way
she knew, manipulating his forehead and the surfaces around his eyes,
soothed him off to sleep.

Again she slept. And again she was aroused, this time not by the storm,
but by Billy. She could not see, but by feeling she ascertained his
strange position. He was outside the blankets and on his knees, his
forehead resting on the boards, his shoulders writhing with suppressed
anguish.

"She's pulsin' to beat the band," he said, when she spoke. "It's worsen
a thousand toothaches. But it ain't nothin'... if only the canvas don't
blow down. Think what our folks had to stand," he gritted out between
groans. "Why, my father was out in the mountains, an' the man with 'm
got mauled by a grizzly--clean clawed to the bones all over. An' they
was outa grub an' had to travel. Two times outa three, when my father
put 'm on the horse, he'd faint away. Had to be tied on. An' that lasted
five weeks, an' HE pulled through. Then there was Jack Quigley. He
blowed off his whole right hand with the burstin' of his shotgun, an'
the huntin' dog pup he had with 'm ate up three of the fingers. An' he
was all alone in the marsh, an'--"

But Saxon heard no more of the adventures of Jack Quigley. A terrific
blast of wind parted several of the guys, collapsed the framework,
and for a moment buried them under the canvas. The next moment canvas,
framework, and trailing guys were whisked away into the darkness, and
Saxon and Bi