He kicked a quantity of leaves in under the sheet-iron open stove, flung some sticks atop of them, and started a little blaze.

Warm water, he reflected, would serve better than cold in removing that clotting blood and dressing the hurt.
Then, saying no further word, but filled with admiration for the girl's pluck, he seized the pail and started for water.
"Nerve ?" he said to himself, as he ran down the road toward a little brook he remembered having crossed, a few hundred yards to southward.
"Nerve, indeed! Not one complaint about her own injuries! Not a word of lamentation! If this isn't a thoroughbred, whoever or whatever she is, I never saw one!" He returned, presently, with the pail nearly full of cold and sparkling water.

Ignoring rust, he made her drink as deeply as she would, and then set a dipperful of water on the now hot sheet-iron.
Then, tearing a strip off the shawl, he made ready for his work as an amateur physician.
"Tell me," said he, kneeling there beside her in the hut which was already beginning to grow dusk, "except for this cut on your forehead, do you feel any injury?
Think you've got any broken bones?
See if you can move your legs and arms, all right." She obeyed.
"Nothing broken, I guess," she answered.

"What a miracle! Please leave me, now.

I can wash my own hurt.