He did not wonder at Cash's sudden interest, his abrupt change from
moody aloofness to his old partnership in trouble as well as in good
fortune. He knew that Cash was not fit for the task, however, and he
hurried the coffee to the boiling point that he might the sooner send
Cash back to bed. He gulped down a cup of coffee scalding hot, ate a few
mouthfuls of bacon and bread, and brought a cup back to Cash.
"What d'yuh think about him?" he whispered, setting the coffee down on
a box so that he could take Lovin Child. "Pretty sick kid, don't yuh
think?"
"It's the same cold I got," Cash breathed huskily. "Swallows like it's
his throat, mostly. What you doing for him?"
"Bacon grease and turpentine," Bud answered him despondently. "I'll have
to commence on something else, though--turpentine's played out I used it
most all up on you."
"Coal oil's good. And fry up a mess of onions and make a poultice." He
put up a shaking hand before his mouth and coughed behind it, stifling
the sound all he could.
Lovin Child threw up his hands and whimpered, and Bud went over to him
anxiously. "His little hands are awful hot," he muttered. "He's been
that way all night."
Cash did not answer. There did not seem anything to say that would do
any good. He drank his coffee and eyed the two, lifting his eyebrows now
and then at some new thought.
"Looks like you, Bud," he croaked suddenly. "Eyes, expression,
mouth--you could pass him off as your own kid, if you wanted to."
"I might, at that," Bud whispered absently. "I've been seeing you in
him, though, all along. He lifts his eyebrows same way you do."
"Ain't like me," Cash denied weakly, studying Lovin Child. "Give him
here again, and you go fry them onions. I would--if I had the strength
to get around."
"Well, you ain't got the strength. You go back to bed, and I'll lay him
in with yuh. I guess he'll lay quiet. He likes to be cuddled up close."
In this way was the feud forgotten. Save for the strange habits imposed
by sickness and the care of a baby, they dropped back into their
old routine, their old relationship. They walked over the dead line
heedlessly, forgetting why it came to be there. Cabin fever no longer
tormented them with its magnifying of little things. They had no time
or thought for trifles; a bigger matter than their own petty prejudices
concerned them. They were fighting side by side, with the Old Man of the
Scythe--the Old Man who spares not.
Lovin Child was pulling farther and farther away from them. They
knew it, they felt it in his hot little hands, they read it in his
fever-bright eyes. But never once did they admit it, even to themselves.
They dared not weaken their efforts with any admissions of a possible
defeat. They just watched, and fought the fever as best they could, and
waited, and kept hope alive with fresh efforts.