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He glanced toward the pantry from which the beating sound still emerged. “Do you know what to do for this?” he asked loudly.

The noise of the beater stopped.

“What d’juh say?”

“I hurt my hand and—”

She came forth, with her muscular arms covered by shreds of dough, and walked to glance at his stained hand.

“Oh good God!” she exclaimed, turning away. “I certainly do hate blood, Maun.”

She began rubbing the adherent dough from her arms.

“Just a minute,” she said. “Go soak it in the wash basin—here’s some warm water.” Taking a tea-kettle from the flat-topped stove, she poured into the basin, adding some cold water from the cistern pump.

As Mauney proceeded to follow her advice she rummaged through a cotton bag, hung on the back of the pantry door. “It’ll be all right, Maun,” she cheerfully prophesied. “A cut like that is safe if it bleeds, but if it don’t, watch out!”

She was a well-formed woman of twenty-seven, a trifle masculine about the shoulders, but with a feminine enough face displaying sharp, hazel eyes beneath black, straight brows. Her nose was passably refined, but her full lips wore a careless smile that lent not only a gleam of golden teeth, but a mild atmosphere of coarseness to her face. The excitement of Mauney’s injury had called up circumscribed patches of crimson to her cheeks and accentuated the nervous huskiness of her voice.