She laid him on his back in the course of the tiny seepage of
water--and then it seemed so cold to her that new fear gripped on her
soul. She tasted it, and grimaced. It was not cold, and it was
brackish, impregnated with minerals. So slight was the flow, that it
existed for little more than the length of Murray's body. And there
was not the shade here that she had anticipated--it was too slight, too
little, here at noonday!
That was easily remedied. A trip to the car, and she had opened
Murray's lashed bundles. A trip down the hillside to the shack
provided her with stakes. From four of these she stretched a blanket
above the recumbent man, and saw that now the congestion had died out
of his face. He was breathing more easily, too.
Then reaction came upon her, and bodily weariness, and flooding tears.
She rallied, however, and fell to work. By mid-afternoon she had
accomplished much. Seeing no hope of moving Murray to the shack, she
made another low canopy of blankets, preparatory to removing him from
the seepage; opened out provisions, brought up a tiny sheet-iron stove
from the shack--it would be cold with the night, bitter cold! There
were many things to be done, and her hands were unaccustomed to doing
these things; but she did them. And when they were done, she took the
hand-ax she found in the car, and sallied down past the shack in search
of firewood, for the hillside was bare.
When she returned, and came into sight of the camp, she dropped her
burden and ran forward; for Murray was standing there in the sunlight,
one hand to his head, staring around him dazedly!
Her cry of protest swung him about. He managed a wan smile, then
obeyed her imperative, panted orders and dropped beneath the blanket
canopy she had erected. She came up to him, breathless with effort and
fear.
"The sun got me, eh?" murmured Murray. "Clairedelune, you're a wonder!
I don't see how you did it. Lord but I feel ill again----"
He dropped back limply, and she burst into tears of despair and
helplessness as she knelt above him.
Again she lashed herself to work, removed the blanket from above the
seepage, and laid it aside for a night-covering. A Californian, she
knew little about sunstroke; but she believed that now he had fallen
into a coma, which might pass into sleep, and his regular breathing
gave her some assurance.
The afternoon dragged into evening, and the night came. Still Murray
lay senseless, breathing heavily but evenly. The sun slipped out of
sight under the western rim, and darkness clamped down until the stars
shone.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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