In a second the mother-heart asserted
itself. Their young eyes must not see this ghastly thing.
"Milly!" she cried to the devoted Indian servant, "help Chief
George." Then dashing into the next room, she half sobbed,
"Children, children! hush, oh, hush! Poor father--"
She never finished the sentence. With a turn of her arm she swept
them all into the drawing-room, closed the door, and flew back to
her patriot husband.
For weeks and weeks he lay fighting death as only a determined
man can--his upper jaw broken on both sides, his lower jaw
splintered on one side, his skull so crushed that to the end
of his days a silver dollar could quite easily be laid flat in
the cavity, a jagged and deep hole in his back, and injuries
about the knees and leg bones. And all these weeks Lydia hovered
above his pillow, night and day, nursing, tending, helping,
cheering. What effort it cost her to be bright and smiling no
tongue can tell, for her woman's heart saw that this was but the
beginning of the end. She saw it when in his delirium he raved to
get better, to be allowed to get up and go on with the fight; saw
that his spirit never rested, for fear that, now he was temporarily
inactive, the whisky dealers would have their way.
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