Lastly they stretched him on the floor and chafed, rubbed, and
kneaded him until he cried out for mercy. As they rolled him into bed,
his eyes dropped shut, but a little later they flared open.
"Mr. McLean," he cried, "the tree! Oh, do be looking after the tree!"
McLean bent over him. "Which tree, Freckles?"
"I don't know exact sir; but it's on the east line, and the wire is
fastened to it. He bragged that you nailed it yourself, sir. You'll know
it by the bark having been laid open to the grain somewhere low down.
Five hundred dollars he offered me--to be--selling you out--sir!"
Freckles' head rolled over and his eyes dropped shut. McLean towered
above the lad. His bright hair waved on the pillow. His face was
swollen, and purple with bruises. His left arm, with the hand battered
almost out of shape, stretched beside him, and the right, with no hand
at all, lay across a chest that was a mass of purple welts. McLean's
mind traveled to the night, almost a year before, when he had engaged
Freckles, a stranger.
The Boss bent, covering the hurt arm with one hand and laying the other
with a caress on the boy's forehead.
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