CHAPTER XX
THE NICKED BULLET
The grey daylight was creeping into the little tent and Alton sleeping at last when Seaforth rose to his feet. His eyes were heavy with the long night's watch which had followed a twelve hours' march, and he shivered as he went out. The morning was bitterly cold, and a fire burned redly outside the tent, but there was no sign of Okanagan, who had joined him during the night, nor had any preparations for breakfast been made.
"Tom," he twice called softly, but only the moaning of the branches overhead answered him, and with a little gesture of impatience he strode into the bush.
Seaforth had no definite purpose, but he was glad to stretch his stiffened limbs, and instinctively turned towards the spot where he had found his comrade. As he approached it he stopped, and watched the dim moving object that caught his eyes with some bewilderment. Tom of Okanagan was kneeling beside a thicket with a stick in his hand, and apparently holding it carefully in line with a fir. After moving once or twice he drove it into the soil, and crawled on hands and knees into the fern so that Seaforth could only see his boots, and surmise by the rustling that he was groping amidst the withered fronds. Once he caught a muffled expletive, after which the rustling ceased awhile, but it commenced again, and Seaforth wondered the more when Okanagan crawled out of the opposite side of the thicket, and set up a second stick in line with the other. He had not the faintest notion of what his companion could be doing.
"Are you finding anything down there, Tom?" he said. Okanagan rose up with a little grim laugh. "Thorns," he said. "There's a condemned big one in my thumb."
Seaforth stared at him with a vague suspicion that the hardships of the forced march they had made had left their mark upon his comrade, though he had never noticed any signs of mental weakness in the big axeman before.
"Aren't there plenty to be picked up in this country without looking for them?" he said.
Okanagan glanced at him with a little twinkle which was not altogether mirthful in his eyes. "Oh, yes. More than I've any use for. You were trying to figure on what I was after? The thing's quite as easy as trailing a deer."
"I was," said Seaforth dryly, and Okanagan approaching him dropped a big hand upon his shoulder.
"Come right along, and I'll show you," said he.
Seaforth followed him, until he stopped by the fir he had worked his alignment from, where he picked up a spent cartridge and pointed to a mark in the snow.
"Nothing particular about that, anyway, a forty-four Winchester," he said. "The fellow had long boots on with one heel down, and he stood right here waiting for Harry. Harry was coming along yonder with the deer, forty yards I make it, and he jumped when the fellow started shooting."
"You think he did?" said Seaforth, slightly bewildered, and Okanagan laughed.
"No, sir, I'm sure," he said. "I could show you where his heels went in if it would do you any good. Harry was coming along quick as he could, thinking about his supper, and the other fellow was crouching here, clawing his rifle and waiting until he came into the moonlight."
The blood surged into Seaforth's forehead, and he clenched one hand.
"The condemned villain! It was devilish," he said.
Okanagan nodded gravely, and his rugged face was stern.
"Oh, yes, but, slinging names at him's not much use," he said. "Well,
I feel it in me that we're going to see more of that man by and by, and
that's just why I'm working up the whole thing from the beginning. Now
I'll show you some more of it."
They floundered through one or two thickets until Okanagan stopped again, and pointed to the red smear upon the fern and withered pine-needles. "That's where Harry lay and waited for him," he said. "He was bleeding pretty bad, but he knew the other fellow meant to finish him."
"Waited for him when he was almost helpless and the man meant to murder him?" said Seaforth, with cold rage and horror in his face.
Okanagan laughed a little almost silent laugh that had a very grim undertone in it. "Yes, sir. That's just what he did. Don't you know Harry yet?" he said. "Still, he didn't figure that all the killing would be done by the other man. See here, this is where he gripped him, and tried to get the knife in. They fell over together there. Harry was played out and bleeding hard, or that man would never have got away when he once had his hands on him."
Seaforth stared at the rent-down undergrowth, and had no great difficulty in reconstructing the scene. Smashed fern and scattered leaves as well as the red smears on the snow bore plain testimony to the fierceness of that struggle, and he pictured his comrade grappling with his adversary while his strength flowed from him with that horrible red trickle. The light that came down between towering trunks showed that his face was grey and stern, and Okanagan, who looked at him, nodded as it were approvingly.
"I've seen enough," said the former. "If I can find that man he will not get away from me."
"Well," said Okanagan simply, "we're short of the bullet now, and I'll know better what to do with Harry when we find it. It's low down in one of those cedars yonder."
"It will be deep in at that range," said Seaforth.
"No," said Okanagan quietly. "I don't think it will. It's pretty plain from the hole it made that it wasn't a common bullet, and I'm kind of anxious to know if all of it came out again."
Seaforth shivered a little as he assisted in the search, and his lips were set when Okanagan, digging something out of the cedar-bark with his knife, laid it in his palm. It was a little piece of blackened lead that was ragged in place of round, as though the soft metal had been rent open and bent backwards. Then the two men looked at each other, and the hot fury that for a moment flushed Seaforth to the temples, passed and left him with a curious vindictive coldness and a faint shrinking from the touch of the murderous lead. Okanagan's eyes were very steady, but there was a little glow down at the back of them.
"Nicked across with a hack saw or a file—and it's not all here," he said. "It strikes me the sooner we find the rest of it the better this weather."
Seaforth drew in his breath. A strip of lead torn off that bullet was rankling in his comrade's flesh, and during the night bitter frost had laid its grip upon the forest. Wounds, he knew, do not heal, but fester under such conditions.
"You can do it, Tom!" he said, and his voice was hoarse.
"I'll try—when he wakes," said Okanagan. "You'll find some flat stones by the river. I want one with an open grit that you could grind a knife down with."
It was long before Alton awakened, and then it became evident that he was not wholly sensible. Loss of blood, over-fatigue, exposure and hunger had left their mark on him, and while he rambled disjointedly a bitter wind sprang up. It raged down the valley, bringing with it the cold of the Pole, and while the pines raised their wild voices, the water congealed in the kettle, and in spite of the great fire built outside it the tent grew icy. At noon Tom of Okanagan glanced at his patient and shook his head, while Seaforth felt his misgivings confirmed as he saw his face.
"I guess we've got to wait for to-morrow. There'll be snow to-night," he said.
It was a long day to Seaforth. Alton moved restlessly in his sleep, or talked and laughed meaninglessly during most of it, while when his eyes closed Tom, who sat in a corner, laid the stone upon his lap and ground at his knife. He had already rubbed the blade down to half its width, but was apparently not contented, and Seaforth felt colder and set his lips each time the harsh grating of steel broke through the roaring of the pines that swelled in volume as the wind increased. It was seldom that either of them spoke, though the big axeman's face would soften momentarily when Alton moaned a little in his sleep. Then it grew sombre and impassive again save for the little gleam in the eyes, and Seaforth guessed what was in his companion's thoughts as the hard, gnarled fingers tightened viciously on the steel.
Somehow the day wore through, and the snow came with the night. It beat upon the canvas and fell hissing in the fire, which snapped and crackled the more fiercely, while acrid vapour crept into the tent, and now and then one of the men's eyes would close a moment. Seaforth had indeed roused himself several times with a jerk when Okanagan pointed to the roll of blankets and layer of springy twigs, and he saw that at last Alton was sleeping restfully. Five minutes later the roar of the branches seemed to sink into a musical lullaby, and the last thing he saw was the big, impassive bushman sitting as still as the motionless figure beneath him on the opposite side of the tent. Then he was wafted back to England on the wings of dreams.
It was broad daylight and warmer when he awakened. Outside the fire crackled noisily, and the great pines rose spires of sombre green against a field of white. Alton was also awake, and smiled at him, while Tom, who stood behind him, made a sign.
"It has got to be done right now before the frost comes back, but we're not going to hurt you, Harry," he said. "You'll walk down to the river and fill that kettle up, Charley."
Seaforth wondered a little, because the snow lay a foot deep in the bush and he could have filled the kettle beside the fire, but he floundered down to the river and felt a little more prepared to face what must be done when he returned. When he did so he found that Tom had rolled back Alton's jean trousers to the knee, and saw a red smear that broadened across the brawny limb. It pulsed over the swell of the corded muscles that showed through the clear, smooth skin, and then Seaforth shivered and turned his eyes away as they fell upon the welling depression with the discoloured edges. Alton noticed the movement, and glanced at him with a twinkle in his eyes. "It isn't pretty, but I don't think Tom will keep us long," he said.
Seaforth felt the blood surge into his face, for it seemed most unfitting that the wounded man should sympathize with him, but finding nothing apposite to say he kept silent, and Okanagan shook his head at them.
"Get hold of his hands, and keep hold. The quieter you are, Harry, the quicker I'll be," he said.
Alton smiled a little. "I don't think it's necessary," he said.
"Still, if it will please you, Tom."
Seaforth clutched the fingers held out to him, and felt suddenly chilly. He would have touched his lips with his tongue, for the blood seemed to have gone out of them, but that he felt Alton's eyes were upon him. Accordingly he turned his face, which he fancied was growing a trifle colourless, aside, and for a moment or two watched Okanagan, who was kneeling with one hand pressed upon the smeared whiteness of the uncovered limb. Seaforth could hear his own heart beating and the thud of snow shaken off a swinging branch upon the tent, and see the light the whiteness outside flung in glint upon the slender knife. He saw it move a little, and sternly repressed a shiver when the lean, hard fingers closed suddenly upon his own. A tremor ran through them, and then the pressure increased, until Seaforth was glad that it grew painful. He dare not glance at his comrade, he would not look at Tom, and sat very still in torment for a space, while he felt that Alton's arms had grown rigid by the cruel grip upon his hands.
Then the tension slackened, and the injured man drew in his breath with a gasp, while Okanagan rose to one knee with great drops of sweat upon his face.
"You got it?" said Alton in a low, strained voice, and nodded when the axeman answered him.
"No," he said, a trifle huskily. "I'm going to try again. Lift him over on his side, Charley."
Seaforth trembled a little as he did it, and glanced for just a moment at his comrade's face. It was set and grey, but it went suddenly awry into the grotesque semblance of a smile.
"Tom never was in a hurry. It's rough on you," he said. Still, Seaforth, who had once held his own with men and women in quick retort and graceful badinage in England, did not answer, but only pressed the hard fingers that now lay somewhat limply in his palm and wondered vaguely whether the ordeal would never be over. It was only then he realized to the full all that Alton had been to him since the day he limped, ragged and very hungry, into a little mining camp. His friends in the old country had turned their backs on him, and Seaforth, who had been hopeless and desperate then, knew that he owed a good deal more than material prosperity to Alton of Somasco.
"Tom," he said hoarsely, "I think we're ready."
Okanagan said nothing, but stooped again, and Seaforth tightening his grasp of the contracting fingers, heard the sound of uneven breathing through the thud of snow upon the tent. He was by this time a little more master of himself, and looked steadily down on the white face with the grimly-set lips. His own was distorted into what was not a sympathetic smile, but a grotesque grin, and there was every now and then a reflection of it in the one awry with pain which looked up at him. Then Alton drew in his breath with a little quivering sigh, and there was a rattle as Okanagan dropped the steel.
"I want that bandage—quick. We are through now," he said.
Seaforth had afterwards a hazy recollection of helping him to twist the strip of fabric about the firm white flesh, and that his hands made red smears on Alton's deerskin jacket when he stooped and lifted him a little. There was no bronze in his comrade's face, but in place of it a curious yellow tinge, through which the greyness showed in patches, and with fingers that were strangely clumsy he held a flask to Alton's lips.
The latter choked, and then his eyes opened wide again. "Pass it round. I'm figuring you're all wanting some," he said.
Seaforth to humour him touched the flask with his lips, and handed it to Tom, who did the same, and then screwing the top on it passed it back to Seaforth no emptier than when it reached him. Alton, however, raised his head a trifle further, and looked at both of them.
"You'll have to do it better. Let me see the thing," he said.
Okanagan glanced at him severely. "I guess you'll lie right where you are and keep very still, or I'll make a hole through the other leg," he said.
Alton appeared to chuckle, but his arm slipped from under him, and he dropped back heavily amidst the blankets with eyes closed while Seaforth bent over him.
"That's all right," said Okanagan. "You needn't worry. I was kind of hoping he would do it because I was anxious about the bleeding. Now we'll get everything fixed up before he comes round again."
Seaforth did what he was bidden, and nothing more, for he had been reared in England, and not amidst the firs and snows of Northern Canada where misadventures are many and doctors very few, but he envied the big bushman his skill that day, and Okanagan may have guessed it, for he once smiled a little as he said:
"There are lots of things I can't do, and it's not your fault that you were raised back in the old country, where you have other folks to put the patches on to you."
"No," said Seaforth, smiling. "Still, he is my partner, you see. Now
I want to know what we are going to do with him."
Okanagan's smile was just perceptible as he held up a ragged piece of lead, but Seaforth saw that he understood all the speech implied, though he made no reference to it,
"There's half the trouble gone," he said. "The rest of it went straight through the bone, and I kind of fancy smashed it up considerable."
"Will the pieces knit as they were before?" said Seaforth very anxiously, and for a moment or two Okanagan did not answer him.
"That," he said very slowly, "is what I don't quite know. One of them bones is a rocker, and she swings on the other. That one's cut, but I don't think it's smashed right through. Now if it goes as well as the other, it's quite possible Harry will limp ever after."
Seaforth stood up with a little shiver. "Good Lord. Harry of all men a cripple! Tom, you must do something."
Okanagan slowly shook his head. "I've done my best now," he said. "We can get him down to Somasco and a live doctor up from Vancouver as soon as we can, and that's about all. There's no time to lose. We'll start to-morrow."
Seaforth cast one glance at the still figure and grey face amidst the blankets, and then clenched his hands as he blundered out of the tent. A white flake fell upon his face, another on his hands, and he shivered again as he glanced at the forest. It was very evident that much depended upon their speed, and down between the sombre pines came the sliding snow.
CHAPTER XXI
OKANAGAN'S ROAD
The great cedar-boughs above the river bent beneath their load, and the scanty light was dimmed by sliding snow, when Seaforth and his comrade stood panting and white all over by the last portage. Okanagan by dint of laborious searching had found the canoe jammed between two boulders with her side crushed in, and had spent a day repairing her with a flattened out meat-can and strips of deerskin. The craft had notwithstanding this leaked considerably, but they made shift to descend the river in her, and now if they could accomplish the last big portage hoped by toiling strenuously to make the mouth of the canon by nightfall.
What they would do when they reached it neither of them knew, but they were too cold and jaded to concern themselves with more than the question how they were to convey their comrade over the boulders and through the thickets which divided them from the next stretch of comparatively untroubled water just then. They had spent most of the day dragging the canoe round the rapid which roared down the hollow in a wild tumult of froth, lifting her with levers from rock to rock, and now and then sliding with her down a declivity, but that was a mode of progression clearly unsuited to an injured man.
Alton lay in the snow beneath a boulder that but indifferently sheltered him, and there was a little grim smile in his face as he looked up at his companions.
"Isn't it time you got hold of me? We can't stop here all day," he said.
Okanagan turned, and stared sombrely at the wall of rock which dropped to the river close behind him, and the strip of boulders and great fallen fragments amidst which the undergrowth crept in and out between.
"There's a gully yonder, but if we worked back round the hillside I don't quite see how we're coming down," he said.
"No," said Alton dryly. "I'm not good at flying. Well, you had better start in and carry me."
Seaforth stooped and grasped his comrade round the thighs, which were lashed together with deerhide with a stiff strip of cedar-bark outside them. Okanagan passed his arms about his shoulders, and they rose with a jerk and stood swaying unevenly for a moment, while Seaforth wondered with a curious feeling of helplessness whether they would ever accomplish the journey to the canoe. It would have tested the agility of an unencumbered man, while he was almost worn out, and Alton cruelly heavy.
"Heave him up a trifle," said Okanagan. "Now then!"
Seaforth gasped, and floundered forward through a foot of snow that hid the holes he sank into and slipped away beneath him as he clawed for a footing on the boulders, but with strenuous toil they made a hundred yards or so, and then laying down their burden stood still, panting. Alton lay silent, with half-closed eyes and the soft flakes settling on his grey face, in the snow, while Seaforth gazed about him despairingly. There was rock and shadowy forest behind them, and in front the smoking rush of the river, while though it was but afternoon the light was failing.
"Get hold again, Tom. It's not good to wait here," he said with a shiver.
This time with infinite difficulty they made fifty yards, and Alton's face showed what his silence had cost him when they set him down again. Seaforth stooped and drew the blanket about him with a great gentleness.
"We did our best. I'd change places with you, Harry, if I could," he said.
Alton smiled a little, but said nothing, and in five minutes they went on again, Seaforth gasping from exhaustion, with a horrible pain in his side and his feet slipping from under him as they struggled up a sloping face of rock, but they had won forty yards when Tom went down and Alton, who fell heavily upon him, rolled over. Seaforth held his breath a moment until he heard the voice of the injured man.
"I wouldn't worry about my head. It would take an axe to hurt me there," he said. "Look at the lashings."
The lashings, however, had not slackened, the cedar-bark was intact, and once more they took up their burden, while Seaforth could not remember how often they had rested when at last they came out upon a smooth strip of sloping rock close to the last of the portage. He was dragging a clogging weight of snow with him, and the white flakes were in his eyes, while now and then his breath failed him and he heard Okanagan growling hoarse and half-articulate expletives.
"You have got to hold out, Charley. There's the canoe below you," he said.
Seaforth braced himself for a last effort, and was never sure whether he or Okanagan stumbled first, but his feet slipped from under him and he fell upon Alton as Tom went down. Then the three slid together down the slope of rock, and fell heavily over the edge of it. Seaforth was partly dazed when Okanagan dragged him to his feet, but, he could see that Alton lay very still with his face awry and that there was consternation in the eyes of his comrade.
"Have we hurt you, Harry?" he said hoarsely.
Alton groaned a little, and his lips moved once or twice before
Seaforth caught any audible answer.
"I don't know that you did it, but I think that bone has gone," he said.
Okanagan, saying nothing, dropped on hands and knees, and while Alton groaned drew the bands tighter about the shattered cedar-bark. Then he rose up and looked at Seaforth, and the two stood silent for almost a minute with the snow whirling about them. There was something very like despair in Seaforth's eyes, and at last his comrade solemnly shook his fist at the forest.
"We have got to get him home straight off," he said. Seaforth did not ask how it was to be done when they had the range to cross, but as one dreaming laid hold of his comrade again, and floundered towards the canoe, which lay close by them now. He was still partly dazed when he took up the paddle and dimly saw the white pines sliding past through a haze of snow. Nor did he remember whether he or Okanagan set the tent up when they reached the island near the canon, but he was sitting inside it holding out a smoking can of tea to Alton when some time after darkness had closed down Tom came in. The snow had ceased in the meanwhile and a biting frost descended upon the valley through which the roar of the canon pulsed in long reverberations. Okanagan dropped the rifle he carried.
"I might have left the thing. The horse is dead," he said.
"Dead?" said Seaforth vacantly.
Okanagan nodded. "Yes," he said. "Somebody has saved me the trouble.
Two bullets in him."
Seaforth was almost past anger now, but the tea splashed from the can he still held as he realized the thoroughness of the work of their enemy.
"Then how are you going to pack Harry and the other things over the range?" he said.
Okanagan's face was almost expressionless. "We're not going to. It can't be done."
Seaforth said nothing. The last fall had shaken him severely, and he had realized since they started that the task before them was almost beyond the power of any two men, but had refused to contemplate what must happen if they failed in it. Now he could see that it was impossible, but dazed with utter weariness as he was he could not think consecutively, and only felt a numbing dismay that in some strange fashion softened the blow, while in place of considering the future his memory reverted without his will to the incidents of that strange journey. They rose blurred before him as the creations of an evil dream, the wild descent of a rapid, the desperate effort of the portage, the long hours of toil at the paddle, and endless unrolling of whitened pines that crawled by them through the snow. Now at least, when he could do no more, that stupendous toil was finished. Turning, he glanced at Alton, who had with apparent difficulty swallowed a little of the tea. He lay amidst the blankets with eyes closed, breathing unevenly.
"Then you'll go on to Somasco, Tom, and send back the boys for us.
They may be in time," he said.
Okanagan strode softly to the entrance of the tent and drew the canvas back. A moon hung red with frost in the pitiless heavens, the stars shone steelily, and it was evident that the cold of the icy North was laying its grip upon the valley.
"Harry wouldn't have much use for them when they came. There's an ice fringe round the boulders now," he said.
Seaforth stared out into the glittering night, and groaned, for he knew what happened to wounded men unsheltered from the frost. His voice was low and harsh as he asked, "Then what is to be done?"
Okanagan replaced the canvas before he answered quietly, "There's the canon."
"Yes," said Seaforth. "Still, no man has ever gone down it."
"No. But the water's lowest in winter, and a canoe once came through. I can't see why another shouldn't do as well with men in it. It's easy getting in, anyway."
Seaforth laughed mirthlessly. "Oh, yes. The question is, will any of us come out again alive?"
As he spoke the sound of the river's turmoil swelled in a great pulsation about the tent, and Seaforth involuntarily drew in his breath. The curious glow he had seen there before, however, grew a trifle brighter in his companion's eyes.
"That," he said solemnly, "only the Almighty knows, but if we stop here there'll be an end of Harry. Now, there are some folks in the old country who'd be sorry if you don't come back?"
Seaforth smiled a trifle bitterly. "I don't think there are. They had an opportunity of showing their affection before I came out to Canada, and didn't take it. I found the best friend I ever had in this country—and as there seems no other way we'll try the canon."
Okanagan sat down again, and hacked away with Alton's knife at a piece of redwood he was fashioning into a paddle. Both of them knew that the effort they were to make on their friend's behalf might well cost their life, but big, untaught bushman and once gently-nurtured Briton were in one respect at least alike, and that was a fact which would never again be mentioned between them.
It was an hour or thereabouts later when Alton opened his eyes.
"I don't know that I asked you, though I meant to, but you and Tom staked two more claims off?" he said.
Okanagan appeared a trifle embarrassed, but Seaforth laughed. "I'm afraid we didn't. You see, we started in a hurry, and I forgot."
Alton stared at him a moment in bewilderment, and then through the pain that distorted it a curious look crept into his face.
"I figure you're lying, Charley, and you don't do it well," he said.
"Folks don't usually forget when they leave a fortune behind them."
Seaforth smiled a little. "Well, I may have been, but a fortune didn't seem very likely to be much use to me then or now," he said.
Alton gravely shook his head, but the two men's eyes met for a moment, and Seaforth felt embarrassed as he turned his aside. There was no need to tell the injured man that his welfare had appeared of more importance to his comrades than any profit that might accrue to them from the silver mine.
"Well," he said simply, "you or Tom should get through to Somasco."
"I hope so," said Seaforth, as Okanagan signed to him. "You see, we are all going there together by the shortest way, down the canon."
Alton stared at him a moment. "Now I had——" he commenced, and then stopped abruptly.
Once more Seaforth smiled. "Then you had thought about it, Harry?"
Alton's eyes closed a little. "I'm not one of the folks who go round telling people all they think," he said. "There's no way down that canon."
Seaforth understood what was passing in his comrade's mind, and knew that Alton had not kept silence because of the risk to himself, for whatever was done the chances were equally against him.
"I'm afraid we can't contradict you, but we shall discover to-morrow whether you are right or not," he said.
Alton's glance grew a little less direct. "I would stop you if I could."
"Of course," said Seaforth, smiling. "Still, you see you can't, and when you go out mining with feather-brained companions must take the consequences."
Alton, who said nothing further, apparently went to sleep, and there was silence in the tent save for the roar of water and the rattle of Okanagan's knife.
They launched the canoe with the first of the daylight, dragging her through the crackling ice fringe under the bitter frost, and as they slid down the smooth green flow towards the stupendous rent in the mountain side the river poured through, Okanagan glanced towards it and then at the still figure lying huddled in the blankets in the bottom of the canoe.
"That, I figure, is one of the most useful men in the Dominion, and between Somasco and the place in England he has a good deal in his hands," he said.
Seaforth understood him, and smiled grimly. "We brought nothing into this world—and we'll be very close to the next one in a few more minutes," he said. "Hadn't you better get way on, Tom?"
They dipped the paddles, and the canoe slid on smoothly under the clear sunlight and the frost towards the film of mist where the oily green now broke up into the mad white tumult that poured down the canon. Then the strokes quickened, the craft lurched beneath them, and the sunlight was blotted out as they plunged into spray-filled dimness. High through the vapour towered smooth walls of stone, and the river that rebounded from them was piled in a white track of foam midway between. The canoe swept onwards down it apparently with the speed of a locomotive, and Seaforth, crouching in the bows, gripped his paddle with bleeding fingers that had split at the knuckles with the frost. He watched the smooth walls whirl by him mechanically, and remembered that the canon could not last forever. There was comfort in the reflection, because the miles would melt behind them at the pace they travelled at. That was so long as the stream flowed straight and even, but he did not care to contemplate what would happen if it foamed over any obstacle.
For a time he saw nothing but froth and spray and flitting stone, and then the roar that came back from the towering walls swelled into a great diapason terrifying and bewildering. Seaforth glanced over his shoulder and saw that Okanagan was dipping his paddle.
"A fall or a big rapid. We've got to go through," he said.
Seaforth swept his gaze aloft for a moment while the bewildering roar grew deafening. Nothing that had life in it could scale the horrible smooth walls that hung over them, and through a rift in the vapour he could see a filigree of whitened pines that seemed very far away projected against the blue. They were, he fancied, at least a thousand feet above him, and he and Okanagan alone far down in the dimness of another world with their helpless companion. Then he nerved himself for an effort as he looked forward into the spray and vapour that whirled in denser clouds ahead. Nothing was visible through its filmy folds, but his flesh shrank from the tumult of sound that came out of it.
"Hold her straight," cried Okanagan, in a breathless roar, and Seaforth just heard his voice through the diapason of the river.
Then the canoe lurched beneath them, and sped faster still, plunging, rocking, rolling, while the froth beat into her, and Seaforth whirled his paddle in a frenzy. The shrinking had gone, and he was only conscious of a curious unreasoning exaltation. A pinnacle of rock flashed by them, there was a roar from Tom, and straining every sinew on the paddle they swung, with eyes dilated and laboured breath, sideways towards the wall of stone. Then the froth that leapt about it swept astern, and they were going on again, faster than ever, and apparently down a declivity, the spray beating upon them and the canoe swinging her bows out of a frothing confusion. Seaforth heard a cry behind him, but could attach no meaning to it, and whirled his paddle mechanically, until the craft appeared to lurch out from under him, and fall bodily with a great splashing. Twice, it seemed to him, she swung round a great black pool, and then they were driving forward again a trifle more smoothly, while here and there a stunted pine that clung to the rocks came flitting back to them. He felt Okanagan's paddle in his shoulder, and glanced round a moment. There was a green strip behind them that seemed to roll itself together and fall roaring into the pool, but a wisp of mist that blotted out everything drifted across his eyes.
Seaforth retained no very clear impression of the remainder of that day's journey, but it was late in the afternoon when the walls of rock fell back a little on either hand, and it seemed to him that they lay motionless in the bottom of a great pit while the hills slowly rolled away behind them. Here and there a strip of shingle now divided rock from river, and when presently Okanagan called out, Seaforth felt by the change of motion that he was backing his paddle. Looking forward he saw the cause of it, for there were boulders in the channel, and a great fir lay jammed across them. They were almost upon it when the bows reached the shingle.
Okanagan helped him to carry Alton ashore, and then stood still looking at the fir, which was of a girth seldom seen in any other country.
"She's lying right across, and we've got to chop our way through," he said. "You'll fix the tent and make supper while I take first turn."
He came back dripping presently, and Seaforth was waist-deep in icy water when he reached the tree. The shingle slipped beneath him, the stream frothed about his limbs, and he felt very puny and helpless with that great log before him. His hands were split and opened by the frost, and the wounds bled at every stroke, but while the red glare of the fire Okanagan was feeding with washed-up branches flickered about him he panted and smote, until the power went from him, and his comrade took his place.
It was apparently a task for demigods, but it is no unusual thing for the men who come to grips with nature unsubdued in the frozen North to attempt, and accomplish, more than flesh and blood seem capable of, and all night long they fought their grim battle, hewing until sight and breathing failed them, and then staggering back to lie dripping and gasping by the fire. Arms grew powerless, eyes were dim, the rents in their wet hands gaped, and there was blood upon their deerskins; but little by little the notch widened, until at last the steel splashed in the water that deflected it, and Seaforth fancied they were beaten. Still, there was no relaxing of effort, and as the stars were paling in the rift high overhead he heard a sound that was not the monotone of the river. Another man heard it, too, for Okanagan came floundering towards him through a tumult of foam and wrested the axe from his hand. For five minutes he smote fiercely, and then raised a hoarse, half-articulate cry of triumph.
"She's going."
There was a smashing and snapping. The huge trunk rolled a little, rent, and swept away, and Seaforth reeling shorewards sat down with bleeding hands in the ashes, laughing foolishly, until Okanagan stooped and smote his shoulder.
"Get up," he said. "It's time we were going."
There was not light enough to see by, and they had eaten nothing during all those hours of heroic toil, but Seaforth seemed to realize that the issue lay beyond them now, and it did not matter greatly what they did or failed to do. He was also consumed by a desire to escape from that horrible place of shadow, and striking the tent in clumsy haste they launched the canoe. After that he remembered little, though he had a hazy recollection of stopping somewhere and helping Tom to make a fire, for there was wood in abundance everywhere. Whether he ate anything he did not know, but all day the canoe slid on comparatively smoothly, and they toiled at the paddle until hands and arms seemed to move of their own volition. Seaforth felt that he would gladly have lain down and frozen, but an influence which had apparently nothing to do with his will constrained him to labour on.
At last, when the stars were shining and the moon hung red in a broader strip of sky, the curious sustaining animus seemed to desert him, and he lurched forward with a little gasp, while the paddle almost slipped from his stiffened fingers.
"Hold up," said Okanagan. "Stream's running slow, and the hills are opening there. I'm not sure that we're not close on the Somasco valley."
Seaforth made a last effort, but his fingers lost their grasp, and when he slipped forward again his paddle slid away behind them. Then he groaned a little, and lay still in the bottom of the canoe. The next thing he was clearly conscious of was the ringing of a rifle and he raised himself as the woods flung back the sound. They seemed some distance from him now, and the moon shone down on a broadening strip of water. Again the rifle flashed, and he wondered vacantly whether the twinkle that perplexed his hazy sight could be lights that blinked at them.
"Where have we got to, Tom?" he said.
Okanagan laughed softly. "Tolerably close on Somasco," he said. "I think they've heard us at the mill."
Then as Seaforth listened, a shout came ringing across the glinting space before them that seemed curiously still. "Hold on. We're coming. Is that you and the others, Tom?"
Okanagan laughed again, and the canoe stopped amidst the ice when the paddle fell from his hand.
"It's a good deal less of us than there was when we started out," he said.
CHAPTER XXII
MISS DERINGHAM DECIDES
It was a clear winter day, when a big side-wheel steamer bound for way ports down the Sound lay at the wharf at Vancouver waiting for the mail. Towering white in the sunshine high above the translucent brine, she looked with her huge wheel-casings, lines of winking windows, and triple tier of decks more like a hotel set afloat than a steamer, and the resemblance was completed by the long tables set out for breakfast in the white and gold saloon. No swarm of voracious passengers had, however, descended upon them as yet, for though winter touches the southern coast but lightly, it is occasionally almost Arctic amidst the ranges of the mountain province, and the Pacific express was held up somewhere by the snow.
Bright though the sunshine was, a bitter wind came down across the inlet from the gleaming hills that stretched back, ridged here and there by the sombre green of pines, towards the frozen North, and Deringham and his daughter, who were setting out on a visit to a town of Washington, had sought shelter in the saloon. Alice Deringham leaned back in a corner, a very dainty picture in her clinging furs, with the ivory whiteness of the panelling behind her. Her father sat close by, with a face that was slightly puckered, and thoughtful eyes, turning over a packet of letters that had reached him from England the day before, and his daughter fancied that their contents by no means pleased him. There were a few of her passengers in the saloon, and one couple attracted her languid attention.
She could see the man plainly, and he was one of the usual type of Western citizen, keen-eyed, quick and nervous of movement and gesture, and incisive of speech. He had a bundle of papers before him, and appeared to be making calculations in pencil while he dictated to his companion. Now and then she caught disjointed fragments of his conversation.
"Got that quite straight? Fall in securities, silver depreciating.
Now did I put in anything about the Democrats going in?"
Miss Deringham could make but little of this, and had always cherished a faint contempt, which she may have inherited from her mother, who had been born at Carnaby, for anything connected with business. Still, she was mildly interested in the man's companion, whose face she could not see. The girl was dressed very plainly, and Miss Deringham decided that the fabric had not cost much to begin with and was by no means new. It, however, set off a pretty, slender figure, and the girl had fine brown hair, while the little ungloved fingers on pencil were white and shapely. Alice Deringham wondered with a languid curiosity what her face was like, and felt a half contemptuous pity for her. She did not consider such an occupation fitting for a woman.
Then her attention was diverted as a boy with a satchel calling out "Colonist," in a shrill nasal drawl, came in, and she vacantly watched a man who purchased a paper spread out the sheet.
"They've got that fellow up at Slocane," he said to a companion. "Yes, sir, sent him down for trial, and it took a special guard to keep the boys off him. I guess if he'd done it down our way they wouldn't have worried, but put him in a tar-keg and set a light to him. They're way behind the times in the Dominion."
"Killed him in his sleep for a hundred dollars," said another man, glancing over the reader's shoulder, but Miss Deringham was not interested in the murder she remembered having heard about. She was, however, a trifle astonished to see that her father was watching the gathering group with a serious look in his eyes, but he glanced down somewhat hastily at his papers when he met her gaze. Then the voices grew less distinct, and that of the man dictating broke monotonously through them until a steward approached her father with an envelope in his hand.
"Mr. Forel has just sent it down, sir," he said. "You're Mr.
Deringham?"
Deringham tore the envelope open, and while he sat staring at the paper inside it his daughter noticed that there was a little pale spot in his cheek. His hand also appeared to tremble slightly when, saying nothing, he passed the telegram across to her.
"Regret to inform you that my partner met with accident in the ranges, and his condition is critical," it read. "Can you send us nurse or capable woman? Mrs. Margery ill. Seaforth, Somasco."
Alice Deringham shivered a little. "He is evidently dangerously injured."
"It appears so," said Deringham, and his daughter afterwards remembered that his voice was hoarse and strained.
The girl, however, said nothing for a while. She was not impulsive, and her face remained almost as cold in its clear whiteness as the panelling behind it, but her heart beat a little faster than usual, and she was trying somewhat unsuccessfully to analyze her sensations. In the meanwhile the voices of the men who now surrounded the one with the paper reached her, and she noticed vacantly that her father seemed to be listening to them.
"They'll hang him, anyway," said one.
"Made no show at all when they got him hiding in the bush," said another. "Still, you couldn't expect much from that kind of man. Killed him for a hundred dollars in his bed."
"Yes, sir," said the first speaker. "And he didn't get all of them.
The man was his own cousin, and too sick to do anything. Well, thank
God, we haven't got many vermin of that kind in the Dominion."
Deringham, who had picked up the telegram, let it slip from his fingers as he rose, and the girl wondered at the change in him. He seemed to have grown suddenly haggard, and the lines upon his face were much more apparent than usual.
"You will excuse me a minute," he said, and the girl noticed the curious deliberation of his movements and the stoop in his shoulders as he crossed the saloon.
Deringham had faced more than one crisis in the past, and the difference in his pose might not have attracted a stranger's notice, though it was evident to his daughter that something had troubled him. Why he should be so disturbed by the news of Alton's condition she could not quite see, but that appeared of the less importance, because she was endeavouring to evade the question why the telegram should also have caused her a curious consternation. He was a half-taught rancher, and she had been accustomed to the homage of men of mark and polish in England—but it was with something approaching dismay she heard that the man who had supplanted her father was, though she could scarcely contemplate the possibility, dying.
In the meanwhile Deringham walked into the bar, and leaned somewhat heavily upon the counter as he asked for a glass of brandy. He spilled a little of it, and the steward, who saw that his fingers shook, glanced at him curiously as he set it down.
"I guess that will fix you, sir," he said. "You're not feeling well?"
Deringham made a little gesture of assent, and the man drew him out a chair. "That is good brandy," he said. "You'd better sit down there quietly and have another. Here's The Colonist. They've got that fellow up at Slocane, but one feels sorry the boys didn't get hold of him. Hanging's not much use for that kind of man."
Deringham's fingers trembled as he thrust the journal aside, but his voice was even. "The brandy is rather better than any I've had of late," he said. "You can give me another glass of it."
For at least ten minutes he lay somewhat limply in the chair, and his reflections were not pleasant. He had speculated with another man's money and lost most of it, as well as profited by several transactions which were little better than a swindle; but that was as far as he had gone hitherto, and he had in a curious fashion, retained through it all a measure of inherited pride. Now, however, the disguise was for a moment torn aside, and he saw himself as he was, a thief and a miscreant, no better than the brutish bushman who had slain his sick kinsman for a hundred dollars. There was, as he had read already, nothing to redeem the sordid, cowardly treachery of that crime.
Deringham was, however, proficient at finding excuses for himself and shutting his eyes to unpleasant facts, and the phase commenced to pass. He had, he recollected, plainly stated that he merely desired Alton to be detained a little amidst the ranges, and it became evident to him that what had happened was the result of Hallam's villainy. Hallam had injured him as well as Alton, while there was no controverting the fact that the rancher's decease would relieve him of a vast anxiety, and his first indignation against Hallam also melted when he rose composedly from the chair. He felt that Seaforth expected something of him, and it appeared advisable to consider what could be done, while a project already commended itself to him. In another five minutes he had rejoined his daughter, looking more like the man who urbanely presided over the not always contented shareholders' meetings. He realized, however, that he had a slightly difficult task before him.
"You seem to take the news rather badly, father," said the girl.
Deringham smiled deprecatingly. "I have not been quite so well lately, and it upset me a trifle," said he. "I have a regard for our Canadian kinsman and have been inclined to fancy that you shared it with me."
"Of course," said the girl indifferently. "Mr. Alton has been especially kind to us."
"Yes," said Deringham. "Mr. Seaforth must also be very helpless up there alone, with his comrade seriously ill. Now there is no great necessity for my journey down the Sound, and I have no doubt that the business could be handled almost as well by letter. I do not know that there is very much that would please you to be seen in the Washington townships either."
Alice Deringham glanced at him thoughtfully. "And?" she said.
Deringham glanced down a moment at his shoes. "I was wondering if you could be of any use up there."
His daughter laughed a little. "I think that is readily answered. I cannot cook, and neither can I wash, while I have never attended to a sick person in my life."
"No," said her father with a trace of embarrassment. "Still, one understands that it comes naturally to women. In any case your mere presence would in a fashion be an advantage."
Alice Deringham watched him in silence for a few seconds and then smiled again. "It is somewhat difficult to believe it. I am sincerely sorry for Mr. Alton, but I can see no reason for intruding at Somasco now."
Deringham regarded her steadily, and the girl knew it would be advisable for her to yield. This did not displease her, for, though she had negatived his suggestion, her father's wishes coincided with her own. She, however, desired to visit Somasco as it were under compulsion, and to feel that she had not done so of her own inclination.
"I think there is a reason—and it would please me," he said.
"Then I should be pleased to hear it."
Deringham appeared to consider, because the motives which influenced him were ones he could not well reveal. "We are his only relatives in this country—and there is the look of the thing," he said.
The girl moved a little, and her father watching her noticed her fine symmetry, and how her red-gold hair gleamed against the white panelling. It was possibly because of this background he also noticed the faint flicker of warmth that crept into her face and neck, and that there was a glow in her eyes he had not seen there previously.
"That," she said with a cold distinctness, "is precisely what I object to."
Deringham laughed a little. "I think that aspect of the question will not be evident to Alton."
"No?" said the girl, while the tinge of colour deepened a little.
"Still, it is very plain to me."
Deringham said nothing, and the two sat still while the voice of the man dictating jarred upon one of them. "Very little interest taken in mineral claims, no inquiries for ranching properties."
Alice Deringham turned, and saw the girl's fingers flittering across the paper, but her face was still hidden and the monotonous voice continued, "We made a few advances during the last week or two."
The other passengers had gone out of the saloon, and it was very quiet save for the soft flow of words and rattle of the pencil, when Deringham once more unfolded the telegram.
"I am afraid it is going hardly with the man," he said suggestively. "'My partner met with accident—his condition is critical.' The message left Somasco yesterday."
There was a rustle at the adjoining table, and the girl's pencil fell to the floor.
"Will you wait a moment, please?" a voice said, and the dictation broke off abruptly, while when the girl rose Alice Deringham found herself suddenly confronted with Miss Townshead. Deringham, who stood up, made her a little decorous inclination.
"I am pleased to see you again," he said.
The speech was apparently lost upon the girl, who did not seem to notice his daughter's greeting.
"I could not avoid hearing a few words of yours," she said. "Mr.
Alton—or his partner—is seriously ill."
Deringham handed her the telegram, and stood watching her curiously while she read it. He saw her lips set a trifle, and a slight lowering of her eyes, but though the girl seemed to draw in her breath he fancied it was not with consternation.
"That is all we know," he said.
Miss Townshead gave him back the message, but Deringham did not see her face, for she and his daughter seemed to be looking at each other. They formed a somewhat curious contrast, for Alice Deringham appeared taller and more stately than she was in her costly furs, and Nellie Townshead very slight and almost shabby in her thin and well-worn dress. Neither spoke for a moment, but the half-amiable condescension in Miss Deringham's attitude was a trifle too marked.
"I am afraid that is all we can tell you," she said. "Mr. Alton has evidently met with a serious accident, and we are going up at once to Somasco to see what we can do for him."
Deringham moved a trifle and glanced at his daughter. She had said very little, but there was a subtle something in her tone and bearing which implied a good deal, and he fancied it was not lost upon Miss Townshead.
The latter, however, glanced round towards her employer, and her face was once more expressionless as she said, "Then I hope you will find him progressing favourably, and it would be a kindness to my father and myself if you or Mr. Seaforth would send us word."
She went back to her duties, and Deringham smiled a little as the monotonous voice commenced again. "That's all right, Miss Townshead. Now where was I? Oh, yes, we should not recommend any further advances. Did I tell him we had to negotiate Tyrer's bond at a discount?"
"You seem to have reversed your decision somewhat suddenly," he said.
"I had not noticed it before, but Miss Townshead is distinctly pretty.
She was, I believe, on tolerably good terms with our afflicted kinsman."
Miss Deringham laughed as she answered him. "That is one of our privileges, but you had better inquire about my baggage. I think I hear the train coming in."
She turned a moment as she went out of the saloon, and glanced back towards the table. She could only see that Miss Townshead's head was bent lower over the paper than it had been, but she had a suspicion as to what the girl was feeling. It was also partly, but not more than partly justified, for Nellie Townshead was writing mechanically just then, though now and then she drove the pencil somewhat viciously into the paper when the hasty words grew faster. "Don't consider your recommendation workable. We are sending you ore to test. Finish it up in the usual way."
Then the locomotive bell on the wharf was answered by the roar of the steamer's whistle, and the man folded up his papers. "You will have to get ashore, but we have done a good morning's work," said he. "Those were friends of yours from the old country?"
"No," said Nellie Townshead with a curious expression. "They are from the old country, but I only met them once or twice at Somasco."
The man glanced at her thoughtfully. "Yes," he said. "I kind of fancied the lady didn't mean to be nice to you."
Miss Townshead smiled, though there was an ominous brightness in her eyes. "I scarcely think she would take the trouble to make me feel that," she said. "Miss Deringham is, I understand, a lady of some importance in the old country."
The man once more regarded her with grave kindliness. "Folks of that kind can be very nasty prettily. I've met one or two of them. Well, you're one of the smartest business ladies I've come across yet in this country, and I should figure that's quite as good as the other. Now—well, of course, we held back a little when we engaged you, and you can tell the cashier to hand you out another two dollars every Saturday."
Nellie Townshead felt that the colour was in her cheeks, but she thanked the man, and gathering up her papers hastened down the gangway at the last moment. She stopped a moment breathless when she reached the wharf and saw Deringham and his daughter drive away, and shut one little hand. Then she laughed, and turned towards the city with a gesture of impatience. "The two dollars are badly needed—and I'm a little fool, but it hurt, all of it," she said.
CHAPTER XXIII
THE AWAKENING
The snow had ceased an hour or two earlier, and the moon shone down upon the glistening pines that shook off their white covering under a bitter wind, when a wagon came lurching into the Somasco valley. Four weary horses floundered in front of it, a thin white steam rising from them into the nipping air, and Okanagan swayed half asleep upon the driving-seat, growling inarticulate objurgations when the vehicle sank creaking into a hollow he could not see. He had, wearing out several horses during the journey, driven close upon a hundred miles through the frost and snow, and had ceased to encourage his companions during the last hour or so. In fact, he was almost as incapable of speech just then as they were of comprehending him.
They had, however, won his admiration, which he was somewhat slow of according city folk, for although there had been times when, as he dragged the worn-out team up steep hillsides through the blinding snow, he almost despaired of reaching Somasco, he had heard no complaint from either Deringham or his daughter. The man had helped him where he could, and when there was nothing that he could do sat silent beside him smoking tranquilly, while, with the flung-up snow whirling about them, the team went floundering down almost precipitous gully or rutted declivity, where a stumble would have hurled them all into the tops of the pines below. Nor had a cry escaped the girl who sat behind them, gripping the side of the bouncing vehicle, when once a horse went down, and on another occasion the wagon left the trail and drove into a hemlock. Okanagan also remembered that though it had been necessary to lift her down when twice they stopped to change the team at a lonely ranch, she rose smiling with blue lips when it was time to go on again.
"Yes, sir," he afterwards said to Seaforth, "there wasn't any weakening down in either of them, and the girl's a daisy."
Deringham, however, was now sitting amidst the straw in the bottom of the wagon, with his arm about his daughter, who nestled close to him for the sake of warmth. A bitter frost had set in during the last hour or so, and the snow was frozen in white patches upon her wrappings, while it was with numbed senses she vacantly watched the pines flit past her. It seemed that they would crawl up out of the darkness and slide by, white beneath the moonlight, forever.
Nor could she recollect much of the journey, which had only left a hazy memory of biting cold and blinding snow, fierce struggles through the drifts, and brief interludes of warmth and brightness in forest-shrouded ranches, where her chilled flesh shrank from the task before her when she rose to go on again. There was Alton blood in Alice Deringham, and more than a trace of the Alton pride, but she did not know what motive had sustained her or why she had borne it all so patiently, and in this she differed from her father. Deringham seldom did anything without a purpose, and he had one now.
His daughter had been asleep with her head on his shoulder when a shout roused her two hours earlier, and with a drumming of hoofs they came lurching into the settlement. For a blissful moment she fancied the journey was at an end, for there were lights and voices and a pleasant smell of firwood smoke, but Okanagan shouted to his team, and the lights faded away behind as they plunged into the silence beneath the pines again.
"Father," she said faintly, "do you think he has gone the wrong way?
It seems ever so long since we left the settlement."
Okanagan may have heard her, though the words were almost indistinguishable. "You lie right where you are for another ten minutes, and keep warm, miss," he said; "then I'll show you something."
Alice Deringham shivered all through. "It is a little difficult," she said.
Okanagan spoke to his horses, and after what appeared an interminable time looked down again.
"There," he said, with a curious, almost silent laugh, and the girl saw a red blink amidst the pines across the valley. "That's Somasco."
Alice Deringham let her head drop back on her father's shoulder with a little sigh. "It seems a very long way," she said, "and I am very cold."
It was some time later when the wagon stopped with a jerk, and she roused herself as a glare of light shone about her. Voices came out of it, somebody held out a hand, and a man whom she did not recognize lifted her from the wagon. Then she walked unevenly into the brightness of a log-walled hall and grew faint, while a tingling pain ran through her with the change of temperature. A woman whom she did not know clumsily took her wrappings from her, and then led her into a room where Seaforth drew a chair up to a table beside the stove. Alice Deringham's head was throbbing, but she could see that he was white and haggard.
"How is he?" she said, and the tingling pain grew more pronounced as she waited the answer.
Seaforth's face was very grave. "I think it is touch and go with him—but if he wears the night out he may pull through. It was very good of you to come."
Alice Deringham made a little gesture of impatience. "But there is hope?" she said, and her voice was very low and strained.
Seaforth glanced round sharply as the woman, knocking over something, went out of the room.
"A little, I believe, if he could sleep," he said huskily. "The doctor is with him now—scarcely left him the last four days. We have nobody to help us. Mrs. Margery broke down. The woman you saw is incapable. Harry has been delirious—and asking for you—half the time."
Seaforth looked at his companion as he spoke, and the girl met his gaze directly. There was no room for anything but frankness at such a time.
"Ah," she said simply. "I am glad I came."
Seaforth's eyes seemed to grow a little misty, and Alice Deringham, who suddenly looked aside, wondered whether it was only the effect of weariness. Whatever he felt, he, however, quietly poured something into a cup and handed it to her. "But you must eat," he said.
Hungry and cold as she had been, the girl could eat but little, though the steaming liquid in the cup put a little life into her, and presently she rose up and shook off the coarse shawl which somebody had wrapped about her shoulders.
"I am ready now," she said.
Seaforth glanced at her a moment with open admiration. The girl to hide her weariness stood very straight, and Alice Deringham knew how to hold herself. The pallor in her face intensified the little glow in her eyes and the ruddy gleam of her lustrous hair under the lamplight. She was, it seemed to him, almost splendid in her statuesque symmetry, but there was also a subtle change in her, and a sudden sense of confusion came upon him. He remembered his previous distrust of her, and that it was to save his comrade she had come.
"No," he said quietly; "you must rest and sleep before you go to him."
Alice Deringham smiled a little, but there was a vibration in her voice that stirred the man. "Do you think I could?"
This time there was no mistaking the faint haziness in Seaforth's eyes. "God bless you," he said simply. "He is my friend—and I think you are the only one who can do anything for him."
Alice Deringham had in her a trace of greatness which was instinctive, and not the result of the training that had taught her serenity. So, though the man had not hidden his meaning, she made no protest nor asked any question.
"All this is new to me," she said; "but I will do the best I can."
Seaforth led her into a room where a dim light was burning. It was most of it in shadow, but she could see the still form on the bed, and for a moment or two nothing else. The face on the pillow was very white and hollow, the half-closed eyes had a curious glitter, while a lean hand was clenched upon the coverlet. Alice Deringham had seen very little of suffering of any kind, and nothing of sickness, and for a moment she stood motionless, horrified at the sight of what was left of the man who had parted from her on the verandah the incarnation of resolute virility. As she watched him he moaned a little, and the sound, which was scarcely human and suggested the cry of some unreasoning creature in pain, sent a thrill through her. Her eyes dimmed a little, and moving forward softly she laid a cool palm on the flushed forehead.
"Don't you know me, Harry? I have come to take care of you," she said.
The man's eyes opened wider, and though it was evident that there was not complete comprehension in them he sighed as with a great contentment. Then they closed altogether as he turned his head a trifle on the pillow. The girl did not move, but stood stooping a little, and looking down at him with a great compassion, until a man who had been watching her nodded unseen to Seaforth as he also bent over the bed. He waited for almost a minute, and then straightened himself wearily as he spoke in a just audible whisper.
"Quiet at last, and sleep may come! Miss Deringham, I think?" he said.
The girl bent her head, and moved softly with him towards the door.
"He knew me?" she said.
The doctor shook his head. "No—not altogether, I think. Still, he is quiet, and that is everything. Now I may be wanted—presently—and for a little there is nothing I can do, while Mr. Seaforth and I have reached our limits. If Alton opens his eyes, let him see you, and you will give him the draught yonder in an hour from now. It is of vital importance that he should take it. If he does not, tap on the door for me."
Alice Deringham bent her head again, and, when the doctor went out with Seaforth, sat down beside the bed. Her fatigue had gone from her, and though she had never done such things before, she gently drew the coverings higher about the man, and once ventured to raise his head a trifle and smooth down the pillow. Alton opened his eyes, and for a moment they seemed to follow her, but the gleam of understanding went out of them when she sat down again. Then he lay very still, and there was an oppressive quietness through which she could hear the crackle of the stove and the night wind moaning about the ranch. Alton's eyes were shut now, and the girl sat and watched him, too intent almost to wonder at herself. This was the man she had striven to despise, and yet she, who had never concerned herself with woman's work before, forgot her weariness as she waited to minister to him. It was but little help that she could offer—a gentle touch that checked a restless movement, a wrinkle smoothed from the pillow—but it was done with a great tenderness, for fibres in the girl's nature that had lain silent long awoke that night and thrilled.