You didn't know whether I
could shoot with my left hand as well as my right--I didn't choose you
should know. I watched fer ye to be tryin' to put handcuffs on me any
minute--after you found my right hand was he'pless."
"Lord A'mighty! You could lay me on my back with your left hand, Andy,"
Kerry breathed.
The big man nodded. "They was plenty of times when I was asleep--or you
thort I was. Why didn't ye do it? Where is they? Fetch 'em out."
Unwilling, red with shame, penetrated with a grief and ache he scarce
comprehended, Kerry dragged the handcuffs from their hiding-place. The
other took them, and thereafter swung them thoughtfully in his strong brown
fingers as he talked.
"You was goin' away without makin' use o' these?" he asked, gently.
Kerry, crimson of face and moist of eye, gulped, frowned, and nodded.
"Well, now," the mountain-man pursued, "I been thinkin' this thing over
sence you was a-speakin'. That there gal o' yourn she's in a tight box.
You're the whitest man I ever run up ag'inst. You've done me better than my
own brothers. My own brothers," he repeated, a look of pain and bitterness
knitting those wonderfully pencilled brows above the big eyes.
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