The Fifth Ace

The girl turned to her with a rapid flow of soft liquid Spanish and the old crone, weeping and muttering, stood aside to let them enter. Thode was forced to stoop under the low, sagging doorway and he stumbled as he made his way to a rickety bed in the corner and laid his burden down.

The girl took the light from the old shaking hands and together they bent above the injured lad.

"I don't think there are any bones broken," Thode announced at last. "But he's had a pretty bad shaking up for a cripple and that is rather a nasty cut on his head. Can you find anything clean to tie it up with?"

Without reply the girl stooped, turned back her short khaki skirt and tore a wide strip from a snowy petticoat. Then with a basin of water dipped from the bucket upon a bench beside them she bathed and bandaged the wound deftly. The old crone had lighted a flaring oil lamp and by its leaping glow Thode saw to his surprise that the shack although old and ramsha