CHAPTER XX
A SUDDEN CLOUD
Dr. Slavens went back to his camp, concluding on the way that it wouldbe wise to have a complete understanding with Governor Boyle in regardto taking further charge of his son's case. If, after three days allowedfor infection to manifest itself, the wound remained healthy and clean,there would be little need of a doctor in constant attendance. YoungBoyle would be able to express his preference in the matter then, andSlavens did not want to act as physician to him against his will.
Governor Boyle was walking up and down like a sentry before the tentwhen Dr. Slavens came up.
"He's asleep," said the father. "He seems to be pitifully weak for a mansuffering from a fresh wound; he dropped off as if he had fainted."
"When you consider that a bullet of that caliber, with the powder backof it that this one had, strikes somewhere around a ton," said thedoctor, "it ceases to be a wonder that he is weak."
"It's Heaven's mercy that spared him!" declared the Governor, his voicetroubled with emotion.
Slavens wondered at the deep affection which this man of so hard arepute could show for his son, and at the tie of tenderness whichplainly bound them. But precedent is not wanting, as the doctorreflected, to establish the contention that some of the world's greatestoppressors have been good fathers, kind husbands, and tender guardiansof the home.
"Yes; Shanklin shot twice," said Slavens. "It was his second one thathit, after he had been mortally hurt himself."
"It was the hand of Providence that turned his aim!" said the Governor."The old one-eyed villain had the reputation of being the best shot inthe Northwest. He provoked my son to draw on him, or tried to atleast--for I can't believe that Jerry drew first--with the intention ofputting him out of the way."
"What do you propose to do about bringing another surgeon here?" askedDr. Slavens.
"Why, I hadn't given it any serious thought," answered Governor Boyle,looking at him quickly.
"It would please me better to have you do so."
"But I have entire confidence in your ability to handle the case, sir.Your conduct in the matter has been admirable, and I see no reason whyyou should not continue to attend my son until--the end, one way or theother."
"You understand, Governor," said Dr. Slavens gravely, searching the oldman's face with steady eyes, "that there is no ground for good feelingor friendship between your son and me?"
The Governor nodded, averting his face, as if the acknowledgment gavehim pain or shame.
"And in case that everything should not turn out to the happiestconclusion for him, I should not want to stand the chance of blame."
"Quite sensible, but unnecessarily cautious, I tell you," the Governorreplied.
"I have done all that a better surgeon could have done," pursued thedoctor, "and I am quite willing to go ahead and do all that can be doneuntil you can bring another physician here, to relieve me, or at leastsatisfy you that I have not allowed any feeling of man to man to standbetween physician and patient."
"Very well; I will telegraph to Cheyenne for a physician," agreed theGovernor, "since it is your wish. But I am entirely satisfied with, andtrustful of you, sir. That I desire you to understand plainly."
Dr. Slavens thanked him.
"I shall send for the other physician to act merely in an advisorycapacity, and in no manner to relieve you of the case unless you desireto be relieved. But I think it will be to your interest to stand by me.I feel that I am under a certain obligation to you, more especially toMiss Gates, for my son's----"
"We will not discuss that, if you please," Dr. Slavens interrupted.
"At least I will stand by what I said to you a little while back," theGovernor said; "that is, in the matter of remuneration, if you pull himthrough."
"All of that in its proper place," said the doctor. "I am going back toComanche now to send for the boy's mother," the Governor announced, "andtelegraph to Cheyenne for the doctor of whom I spoke. I have known himfor many years. I'll have some more tents and camp-supplies sent out,and anything that you stand in need of which can be procured inComanche."
Dr. Slavens gave him a list of articles needed in the patient's case,and the Governor rode away. The undertaker from Comanche arrived alittle later, and took Hun Shanklin's body up from the ground. When hiswagon, on its return to Comanche, had passed the tent where Agnes wastrying to sleep, she got up and joined Dr. Slavens.
"I couldn't sleep," she explained. "Every time I shut my eyes I couldsee that poor old gambler's body lying there with the coat over hisface!"
"I don't feel either pity or pain in his case," said the doctor; "or,when it comes to that, for the other one, either."
"Well, you couldn't have prevented it, anyway," she sighed.
"And wouldn't have if I could," he declared. "I looked on them as onepoison fighting another, as we set them to do in the human system. Whenone overcomes the other, and the body throws them both out, healthfollows."
"Do you think Jerry will recover?"
"There's a chance for him," he replied.
"For his mother's sake I hope he will," she said. "I went to see her,remembering in the midst of my distress her kind face and gentle heart.I'm glad that I went, although my mission failed."
"No, nothing fails," he corrected gently. "What looks to us like failurefrom our side of it is only the working out of the plan laid down a longtime ahead. We may never see the other side of the puzzle, but if wecould see it we'd find that our apparent failure had been somebodyelse's gain. It's the balance of compensation. Your thought of Boyle'smother, and your ride to appeal to her in my behalf, worked out inbringing his father here at a time when Jerry needed him as he never mayneed him in his life again."
"It was a strange coincidence," she reflected.
"We call such happenings that for want of a better name, or for theshort-sightedness which keeps us from applying the proper one," said he."It's better that you have concluded to give up the City of Refuge.You'll not need it now."
"It was a foolish undertaking, romantic and impossible, from the verybeginning," she owned. "I never could have put it through."
"It would have carried many a heartache with it, and many a hard andlonely day," said he. "And so we are both back where we were, so far aslanded possessions go in this country, at the beginning."
"I've lost considerable by my foolish dream," she confessed withregret.
"And I have gained everything," he smiled, taking her hand in his.
The world around them seemed to be too grave to look kindly on anylove-passages of tenderness or kisses, or triflings such as is thecommon way of a man with a maid. In that moment when hand touched handshe looked up into his eyes with warm softness glowing in her own, andon her lips stood an invitation which his heart sprang to seize, like aneager guest leaping through the portal of welcome.
At that moment, when eye drew eye, heart warmed to heart, and lipstrembled to meet, Jerry Boyle coughed as if blood were mounting to histhroat and cutting off his life.
Dr. Slavens was at his side in a moment. It must have been thestrangulation of an uneasy dream, for there was no symptom ofhemorrhage. The wounded man still slept, groaning and drawing the lipsback from the teeth, as he had drawn them in his passion when he came onthat morning to meet his enemy with the intention in his heart to slay.
But love shuddered and grew pale in the cold nearness of death. The kissso long deferred was not given, and the fluttering pulse which hadwarmed to welcome it fell slow, as one who strikes a long stride in ajourney that has miles yet to measure before its end.
Governor Boyle was back in camp in the middle of the afternoon, andbefore night the tents and furnishings for lodging the party comfortablyarrived from Comanche. The Governor pressed Agnes, who was consideringriding to Comanche to find lodging, to remain there to assist andcomfort his wife when she should arrive.
"We need the touch of a woman's hand here," said he.
They brought Jerry's tent and set it up f
or her. She was asleep atdusk.
* * * * *
Mrs. Boyle arrived next morning, having started as soon as the messengerbearing news of the tragedy reached the ranch. She was a slight,white-haired woman, who had gone through hardships before coming toprosperity on that frontier, so the fifty-mile ride in a wagon was nounusual or trying experience for her.
Whatever tears she had for her son's sad plight she had spent on therough journey over. As she sat beside him stroking his heavy hair backfrom his pallid brow, there was in her face a shadow of hauntinganxiety, as if the recollection of some old time of terror added itspangs to those of the present.
Her presence in camp, and her constant ministrations at her son's side,relieved Dr. Slavens of considerable professional anxiety, as well aslabor. It gave him time to walk about among the gigantic stones whichcast their curse of barrenness over that broken stretch, Agnes with him,and make a further investigation of the land's mineral possibilities.
"Ten-Gallon was telling the truth, in my opinion," said he. "I haveexplored these rocks from line to line of this claim, and I reached theconclusion a good many days ago that somebody had been misled insupposing it was worth money. It was nothing but Boyle's persistentdetermination to get hold of it that gave it a color of value in mymind."
"Still, it may be the means, after all, of yielding you as much as youexpected to get out of it at the first," she suggested.
He looked at her questioningly.
"I mean the Governor's declaration yesterday morning that he would payyou twice what you expected to get out of it if you would save Jerry'slife."
"Oh, _that_!" said he, as if he attached little importance to it.
"He's a millionaire many times over," she reminded him. "He can affordto do it, and he should."
"I may be out of the case entirely before night," he told her,explaining that another physician would arrive on the first train fromCheyenne.
"You know best," said she, resigning hope for his big fee with a sigh.
"Smith will come over with your tent and goods today, very likely," saidhe, "and then we can leave. I had planned it all along, from the time weused to take those moonlight walks to the river, that we should leavethis country together when it came our time to go."
"It would be wrong for you to waste your life here, even if you couldmake more money than elsewhere, when the world with more people and morepain in it needs you so badly," she encouraged him.
"Just so," he agreed. "It's very well for Smith to stay here, and men ofhis kind, who have no broader world. They are doing humanity a greatservice in smoothing the desert and bringing the water into it."
"We will leave it to them," she said.
They tramped across the claim until they came in sight of Hun Shanklin'stent. Its flap was blowing in the wind.
"The old rascal came over to make friends with me," said Slavens. "Heclaimed that he never lifted his hand against me. There's his horse,trying to make it down the slope to the river. I'll have to catch thebeast and take that rope off.
"There's a man over there!" Agnes exclaimed. "Look! There among therocks to the right of the tent! I wonder who it is?"
Slavens looked where she pointed, just as the man disappeared among therocks.
"It's the Governor!" she whispered.
"Looked like his coat," he agreed.
"Do you suppose he's----"
"Trying to locate old Shanklin's mine," he said. "That's what he'safter. If there's copper on that piece the Governor will get it, even ifhis son doesn't live to share with him. The difference of a figure ortwo in the description of a piece of land might be revised on the books,if one had the influence."
The doctor for whom Governor Boyle had sent arrived on the afternoontrain from Cheyenne and reached the camp before sunset. He spoke in thehighest terms of the manner in which Dr. Slavens had proceeded, anddeclared that it would be presumptuous meddling for him, or anyone else,to attempt to advise in the case.
Agnes heard his commendation with triumph in her eyes, and Mrs. Boylegave Dr. Slavens her blessing in a tearful look. The doctor fromCheyenne took up his instrument-case and held out his hand with a greatdeal more respect in his bearing toward the unknown practitioner than hehad shown upon his arrival.
"On vacation here?" he asked, puzzled to find any other excuse for somuch ability running wild among the rocks in that bleak place.
"Something like that," answered Slavens noncommittally.
"When you're passing through Cheyenne, stop off and see me," givingSlavens a respectful farewell.
Dr. Slavens advanced several points in the appraisement of GovernorBoyle, although, to do the Governor justice, he had seen from thebeginning that the wandering physician was a master. Boyle had beenweighing men for what they were worth, buying them and selling them, fortoo many years to place a wrong bet. He told Slavens that unlimitedcapital was back of him in his fight for Jerry's life, and that he hadbut to demand it if anything was wanted, no matter what the cost.
Dr. Slavens told him bluntly that his son was in a fix where one man'smoney would go as far as another's to get him clear, and that it hadvery little weight in the other end of the scales against the thing theywere standing in front of, face to face.
"Save him to me, Doctor! For God's sake save him!" begged the old man,his face bloodless, the weight of his unshored years collapsing upon himand bowing him pitifully.
Again Slavens felt the wonder of this man's softness for his son, butpity was tinctured with the thought that if it had been applied inseason to shaping the young man's life, and his conscience, and hissense of justice, it might have commanded more respect. But he knew thatthis was the opportunity to make the one big chance which the years hadbeen keeping from him. At the start Slavens had told the old man thathis son had a chance for life; he had not said how precariously it laybalanced upon the lip of the dark canyon, nor how an adverse breath mightsend it beyond the brink. The weight of the responsibility now lay onhim alone. Failure would bring upon him an avalanche of blame; success aglorious impetus to his new career.
He took a walk down to the river to think about it, and breathe over it,and get himself steadied. When he came back he found Smith there,unloading Agnes' things, soaking up the details of the tragedy with asmuch satisfaction as a toad refreshing itself in a rain.
Smith was no respecter of office or social elevation. If a man deservedshooting, then he ought to be shot, according to Smith's logic. As hemade an excuse to stay around longer by assisting the doctor to raiseAgnes' tent, he expressed his satisfaction that Jerry Boyle had receivedpart payment, at least, of what was due him.
"But I tell you," said he to the doctor in confidence, turning a waryeye to see that Agnes was out of hearing just then. "I'm glad he got itthe way he did. I was afraid one time that girl over there was goin' tolet him have it. I could see it in her eye."
"You can see almost anything in a woman's eye if your imagination isworking right," the doctor told him, rather crabbedly.
"You don't need to believe it if you don't want to," returned Smith,somewhat offended, "but I tell you that girl'd shoot a man in a minuteif he got too fresh!"
"I believe you're right about that, Smith," agreed the doctor, "so let'syou and I be careful that we don't get too fresh."
Smith said no more, but he kept turning his eye upon the doctor as hegot his wagon ready to set off on his return, with a good deal ofunfriendliness in it. Evidently it had come into his mind only then thatDr. Slavens was assuming a sort of proprietary air around Agnes.
With his foot on the brake and his lines drawn up, Smith looked down andaddressed her.
"Well, I don't suppose you'll be back on the river for some time?"
"I expect it will be a long time," she replied, evading exposition ofher plans.
"I'll keep my eye on the place for you, and see that them fellers don'tcut down your timber," he offered.
She thanked him.
; "When you come over that way, take a look at that sign on the front ofmy store," said Smith, giving her a significant, intimate glance. "Themore you see that name in print the better you like it."
With that Smith threw off his brake so suddenly and violently that itknocked a little cloud of dust out of his wagon, laid the whip to histeam, and drove off with almost as grand a flourish as he used toexecute when setting out from Comanche on the stage.
Mrs. Boyle left her son's side, her husband relieving her, to see thatAgnes was supplied with everything necessary. She had pressed Agnes toremain with her--which was well enough in accord with the girl's owninclination--and help her care for her "little boy," as she called himwith fond tenderness.
"Isn't she sweet?" whispered Agnes, as Mrs. Boyle went to her own tentto fetch something which she insisted Agnes must have. "She is so gentleand good to be the mother of such a wolf!"
"But what did she think about her precious son going to turn the wholeUnited States out after you because you wouldn't help him pull the plankout from under an unworthy friend?"
"I didn't tell her that," said Agnes, shaking her head. "I told theGovernor as we came over, and she isn't to know that part of it."
Their tents made quite a little village, and the scene presentedconsiderable quiet activity, for the Governor had brought a man overfrom Comanche to serve the camp with fuel and water and turn a hand atpreparing the food. Agnes was cook-in-extraordinary to the patient andthe doctor. She and Slavens took their supper together that night,sitting beside the fire.
There they talked of the case, and the prospect of the fee, and of thefuture which they were going to fix up together between them, asconfidently as young things half their age. With the promised fee, lifewould be one way; without it another. But everything was white enameland brass knobs at the poorest, for there was confidence to give hope;strength and love to lend it color.
Striking the fire with a stick until the sparks rose like quail out ofthe grass, Dr. Slavens vowed solemnly that he would win that fee or takein his shingle--which, of course, was a figurative shingle only at thattime--and Agnes pledged herself to stand by and help him do it asfaithfully as if they were already in the future and bound to sustaineach other's hands in the bitter and the sweet of life.
"It would mean a better automobile," said he.
"And a better surgery, and a nicer chair for the consulting-room," sheadded, dreaming with wide-open eyes upon the fire.
"And a better home, with more comfort in it for you."
"Oh, as for that!" said she.
"I've got my eye on a place with old elms in front of it, and moss onthe shingles, and a well where you pull the bucket up with a rope over apulley," said he. "I've got it all laid out and blooming in my heart forthat precious mother of yours. It is where mine used to live," heexplained; "but strangers are in it now. We'll buy them out."
"It will be such a burden on you. And just at the beginning," shesighed. "I'm afraid, after all, that I'll never be coward enough toconsent to it at the last."
"It's out of your hands now, Agnes," said he; "entirely out of yourhands."
"It is strange how it has shaped out," she reflected after a littlesilence; "better, perhaps, than we could have arranged it if we had beenallowed our own way. The one unfortunate thing about it seems to be thatthis case is isolated out here in the desert, where it never will do youa bit of good."
"Except the fee," he reminded her with a gentle smile.
"Oh, the fee--of course."
"But there is a big hurdle to get over before we come to even that."
"You mean----"
She looked at him with a start, the firelight catching her shiningeyes.
"The crisis."
"Day after tomorrow," said she, studying the fire as if to anticipate inits necromancy what that day offered to their hopes.
The shadow of that grave contingency fell upon them coldly, and theplans they had been making with childlike freedom of fancy drew away andgrew dim, as if such plans never had been. So much depended on thecrisis in Jerry Boyle's condition, as so much devolves upon the big _if_in the life of every man and woman at some straining period of hopes andschemes.
Words fell away from them; they let the fire grow pale from neglect, andgray ashes came over the dwindling coals, like hoarfrost upon the brightsalvia against a garden wall. Silence was over the camp; night was deeparound them. In Jerry Boyle's tent, where his mother watched, a dimlight shone through the canvas. It was so still there on that barrenhillside that they could hear the river fretting over the stones of therapids below the ford, more than half a mile away.
After a while her hand sought his, and rested warm upon it as shespoke.
"It was pleasant to dream that, anyway," said she, giving up a greatsigh.
"That's one advantage of dreams; they are plastic material, one canshape them after the heart's desire," he answered.
"But it was foolish of me to mingle mine with yours so," she objected."And it was wrong and selfish. I can't fasten this dead weight of mytroubles on you and drag you back. I can't do that, dear friend."
He started at the word, laying hold of her hand with eager grip.
"Have you forgotten the other word--is that all there is to it?" heasked, bending toward her, a gentle rebuke in his trembling voice.
"There is so much more! so much more!" she whispered. "Because of that,I cannot be so selfish as to dream those splendid dreams again--wait,"she requested, as she felt that he was about to speak.
"If I thought only of myself, of a refuge for others and myself, then Iwould not count the penalty which would attach to you to provide it. Butunless we win the Governor's fee, my dear, dear soul, don't you see howimpossible it will be for us to carry out even the most modest of ourfond schemes?"
"Not at all," he protested.
"It would drag you back to where you were before, only leaving you witha greater burden of worry and expense," she continued, unheeding. "I wasrapt, I was deadened to selfish forgetfulness by the sweet music ofthose dreams. I am awake now, and I tell you that you must not do it,that I shall never permit you to ruin your life by assuming a load whichwill crush you."
"Agnes, the chill of the night is in your heart," said he. "I will notlisten to such folly! Tomorrow, when the sun shines, it will be the sameas yesterday. I have it all arranged; you can't change it now."
"Yes. You took charge of me in your impetuous generosity, and I wasthoughtless enough to interpose no word. But I didn't mean to beselfish. Please remember above it all that I didn't mean to beselfish."
"I have it all arranged," he persisted stubbornly, "and there will be noturning back. Tomorrow it will not look so gloomy to you. Now, you'dbetter go to bed."
He rose as he spoke, gave her his hand, and helped her to her feet. Asthey stood face to face Agnes placed her hand upon his shouldergravely.
"I am in sober earnest about this, Doctor," said she. "We must not go onwith any more planning and dreaming. It may look as if I feared thefuture with you for my own sake, putting the case as I do, all dependenton the winning of that fee. But you would not be able to swim with theload without that. It would sink you, and that, too, after you havefought the big battle and won new courage and hope, and a new vision tohelp you meet the world. Unless we weather the crisis, I must ride awayalone."
"I'd be afraid of the future without you; it would be so bleak andlonesome," said he simply. He gave her good night before her tent.
"And for that reason," said he, carrying on his thought of a minutebefore, "we must weather the crisis like good sailormen."