Part 19

There was a bad outbreak of typhoid at the upper camp on the Big Horn, and Dr. Bailey had been urgently summoned. The upper camp lay on the other side of the Big Horn Lake, twenty miles or more from the steel. The lake itself was six miles long by canoe, but by trail it was at least twice that. Hence, though there would be some stiff paddling in the trip, the doctor did not hesitate in his choice of route. He knew his canoe and loved every rib and thwart in her. He had learned also the woodsman's trick of going light. A blanket, a tea pail which held his grub, consisting of some Hudson Bay hard tack, a hunk of bacon, and a little tea and sugar, and his drinking cup constituted his baggage, so that he could make the portages in a single carry. Many a mile had he gone, thus equipped, both by trail and by canoe, in his journeyings up and down these valleys, doing his work for the sick and wounded in the railroad, lumber, and tie camps, and more recently in the new-planted mining towns.

It was a great day for his trip. A stiff breeze upstream would help him in his fight with the current and coming down it would be glorious. The sun was just appearing over the row of pines that topped the low mountain range to the east when he packed his kit and blankets under the gunwale in the bow and slipped his canoe into the water. He was about to step in when a voice he had not heard for many days arrested him.

“Hello, Duprez! Did you see the preacher pass this way yesterday? He was--By the livin' jumpin' Jemima! Barney!”

It was Ben Fallows, gazing with open mouth on the doctor. With two swift steps the doctor was at his side. He grasped Ben by the arm and walked him swiftly apart.

“Ben,” he said, in a low, stern voice, “not a word. I once did you a good turn?”

Ben nodded, still too astonished for speech.

“Then listen to what I tell you. No one must know what you know now.”

“But--but Miss Margaret and Dick--” gasped Ben.

“They don't know,” interrupted the doctor, “and must not know. Will you promise me this, Ben?”

“By Jove, Barney! I don't--I don't think--”

“Do you hear me, Ben? Do you promise?”

“Yes, by the livin'--”

“Good-bye, Ben; I think I can depend on you for the sake of old days.” The doctor's smile set Ben's head in a whirl.

“You bet, Bar--Doctor!” he cried.

“Good old boy, Ben. Good-bye, lad.”

He stepped into the canoe and pushed her off into the eddy just above the falls by which the Big Horn plunged into the Goat.

“Bo' voyage, M'sieu le Docteur!” sang out Duprez. “You cache hup de preechere. He pass on de riviere las' night.”

“What? Who?”

“De preechere, Boyle. He's pass on wid canoe las' night. He's camp on de Beeg Fall, s'pose.”

Barney held his canoe steady for a moment. “Went up last night, did he?”

“Oui. Tom Martin on de Beeg Horn camp he's go ver' seeck. He send for M'sieu Boyle.”

“Did he go up alone?”

“Oui. He's not want nobody. Non. He's good man on de canoe.”

It was an awkward situation. There was a very good chance that he should fall in with his brother somewhere on the trip, and that, at all costs, he was determined to avoid. For a minute or more he sat holding his canoe, calculating time and distances. At length he came to a resolve. He must visit the camp on the Big Horn, and he trusted his own ingenuity to avoid the meeting he dreaded.

“All right, Duprez! bon jour.”

“Bo' jou' an' bon voyage. Gare a vous on de Longue Rapide. You mak' de portage hon dat rapide, n'est ce pas?”

“No, sir. No portage for me, Duprez. I'll run her.”

“Prenez garde, M'sieu le Docteur,” answered Duprez, shrugging his shoulders. “Maudit! Dat's ver' fas' water!”

“Don't worry about me,” cried the doctor. “Just watch me take this little riffle.”

“Bien!” cried Duprez, as the doctor slipped his canoe into the eddy and, with a smooth, noiseless stroke, sent her up toward the point where the stream broke into a riffle at the head of the rapid which led to the falls below. It may be that the doctor was putting a little extra weight on his paddle or that he did not exercise that unsleeping vigilance which the successful handling of the canoe demands, but whatever the cause, when the swift water struck the canoe, in spite of all his strength and skill, he soon found himself almost in midstream and going down the rapids.

“Mon Dieu!” cried Duprez, dancing in his excitement from one foot to the other. “A droit! a droit! Non! Don' try for go hup! Come out on de heddy!”

The doctor did not hear him, but, realizing the hopelessness of the frontal attack upon the rapid, he steered his canoe toward the eddy and gradually edged her into the quiet water.

“You come ver' close on de fall, mon gar'!” cried Duprez, as the doctor paddled slowly up the edge past him. “You bes' pass on de portage. Not many mans go hup on de rapids comme ca.”

“All right, Duprez. I hit her too hard, that's all.”

Once more the doctor moved toward the riffle. He had done the thing before and he was not to be beaten now. As the eddy bore him toward the swift water again he carefully gauged the angle of attack, so that when the nose of the canoe entered the riffle, with the trick that all canoemen know, he held her up firm against the water, and, with no very great effort, but by skilful manipulations of the force of the current, he shoved her gradually across the riffle into the slow water near the farther bank, and with a triumphant wave of the paddle disappeared around the bend.

“He's good man,” said Duprez to Ben Fallows, who had taken all this time to recover from the shock of Barney's sudden appearance. “But de preechere, he's go hup dat rapide lak one oiseau las' night.”

“Did, eh?” answered Ben. “Well, he didn't put in three summers on the Mattawa fer nothin'. He's a bird in the canoe, an' so's his bro--that is--the doctor there. Wonder if he'll catch him!” Ben was much excited.

“Mebbe. He's cache heem comin' down, for sure!”

Meanwhile the doctor paddled on with steady, swinging stroke, taking advantage of every eddy and cross current, stealing along the bank under the overhanging trees, sidling across swift water, lifting his canoe over rocky bits, till near mid-day he found himself at the portage below the Long Rapid.

“Guess I'll camp on the other side,” he said, talking aloud after the manner of men who live much alone. He adjusted his paddles on the thwarts, hooked his tea pail to his belt, shouldered his canoe, and, taking his blanket pack in his hand, made the half mile portage without a “set down.”

“There,” he said, setting his canoe carefully on the grass, “my legs are better than my arms. Now we'll grub.” He unpacked his tea pail, cut his bacon into strips preparatory to toasting, built a fire, drew a pail of water, threw in a handful of tea, swung it by a poplar sapling over the fire, and sat down to toast his bacon. In fifteen minutes his meal was ready--such a meal as can be had only in the mountains under the open sky and at the end of a ten-mile paddle against the stream of the Big Horn. After dinner he lit his pipe and stretched himself in the warm spring sun for half an hour's quiet think. The old restlessness was coming back upon him. His work as Medical Superintendent of the railway construction was practically completed. The medical department was thoroughly organized and the fight with disease and dirt was pretty much over so far as he was concerned. And with the easing of the strain there came fiercely upon him the soul fever that had for the last three years driven him from land to land. Had it not been that his professional honour demanded that he should hold his post and do his work, he had long ago left a district where he was kept constantly in mind of what he had so resolutely striven to forget. By the exercise of the most assiduous care he had prevented a meeting with his brother during the last three months. But in this he could not hope to be successful much longer. Before his second pipe was smoked he had reached his resolve. “I'll pull out of this,” he said, “once this Big Horn camp is cleaned up.”

He packed his kit, carefully extinguished his fire, the mark of a right woodsman, slipped his canoe into the water, and set off again. His meeting with Ben Fallows seemed somehow to have brought his brother near him to-day. Everything was eloquent of those days they had spent together on the upper reaches of the Ottawa. The flowing river, the open sky, the wood, the fresh air, and, most of all, the slipping canoe spoke to him of Dick. The fierce resentment, the bitter sense of loss, that had been as a festering in his heart these years, seemed somehow to-day to have lost their stinging pain. With every lift of the paddle, with every deep breath of the fragrant spring air, with every slip of the canoe, the buoyant gladness of those old canoeing days came swelling into his heart, and ere he knew he caught himself singing, to the rhythmic swing of paddle and shoulders, the old Habitant canoe song:

“En roulant ma boule roulant.”

As often as he found his body swinging to the song, so often did he sternly check himself and resolutely set another air going in his head, only to find himself in a short space swinging along again to the old song to which he and his brother had so often made their canoe slip in those great days that now seemed so far away.

“En roulant ma boule,”

sang his paddle in spite of all he could do. He could hear Dick's clear tenor from the bow. “Here, confound it! Quit it, I say!” he said aloud savagely.

“En roulant ma boule roulant,”

in a clear strong voice came the old song from around the bend. The doctor almost dropped his paddle into the stream.

“Heavens above!” he muttered. “What's that? Who's that?”

“Visa la noir, tua le blanc, Rouli roulant, ma boule roulant,”

sang the voice. There was only one who could sing that verse just that way. With two swift heaves of the paddle he lifted his canoe into the overhanging bushes, noiselessly leaped ashore, and pulled his canoe up the bank after him. Down the river still came the song, and ever nearer.

“O fils du roi tu es mechant, En roulant ma boule.”

The doctor cautiously parted the bushes and looked out. Close to the bank came the canoe, the singer sitting in the stern, his hat off and his face showing brown against the fair hair. How strong he looked and how handsome! Barney remembered his own boyish pride in his brother's good looks. Yes, he was handsome as ever, and yet he was different. “He's older, that's it,” said the man in the bushes, breathing hard. No, it was not that altogether. There was a new gravity, a new dignity, upon the face. All at once the song ceased abruptly. The paddle was laid down and the canoe allowed to drift. The current carried her still nearer the shore. Every line in the face could now be seen. The man peering out through the bushes was conscious of a sharp thrust of pain. The lines in that grave, handsome face were lines drawn with some sharp instrument of grief. The change was not that of years, it was more. Not simply the gravity of responsible manhood, it was that, and something else. This was the change, the old careless gaiety was gone out of the face and in its place sadness, almost gloom. Straight down the river the grave, sad face was turned, but the eyes were fixed with unseeing gaze upon the flowing water. The canoe was now almost abreast the hiding place in the bushes and still drifting. Suddenly the man in the canoe, lifting up his face toward the sky, cried out, “I'll bring her back, please God, and I'll find him, too!” The watcher drew back quickly. A stick snapped under his hand. He threw himself face down and gripped his hands hard into the moss as if to hold himself there. “A deer, I guess, but I must get on,” he heard a voice say, then a flip of the paddle and, looking out through the bushes, he saw the swaying figure of the man he most longed and most dreaded to see of all men in the world fast disappearing from his view. Twice he raised his hands to his lips to call after him, but even as he did so a vision held his voice, the vision of a room in a city far away, the girl he loved, and this man pressing hot kisses on her face.

“No,” he said at length, grinding his foot hard into the moss, “let him go.” But still with straining eyes he gazed after the swaying figure till the bend in the river hid it from his sight. Then he sank down on the deep moss bank with the air of a man who has just passed through a heavy fight.

The rest of the journey upstream was to him a weary drag. The brightness had gone out of the light, the sweetness out of the air. A burning pain filled his heart and clutched at his throat. The old sore, which his work for the sick and wounded had helped to heal over, had been torn open afresh, and the first agony of it was upon him again. He arrived at the upper camp late at night and weary. But, weary as he was, he toiled on in his fight with the typhoid outbreak till near the dawning of the day, then, snatching an hour's sleep, he set off down the Big Horn, resolved that ere a week had passed he would seek in some far land the forgetting which here was impossible to him.

Steadily the paddle swung all the long morning, but without awakening any rhythmic song in his heart. It was a heavy grind to be got through with as soon as might be. Even the slip and leap of the canoe failed to quicken his heart a single beat. It was still early in the forenoon when he reached the Long Rapid. It was a dangerous bit of water, but without a moment's considering he stood upright in his canoe and, casting a quick glance down the boiling slope, he made his choice of passage. Then getting on his knees he braced them firmly against the sides of his canoe and before he was well ready found himself in the smooth, steep pitch at the crest of that seething incline of plunging water. Two long swallowlike swoops, then a mad plunging through a succession of buffeting, curling waves that slapped viciously at him as he dashed through, a great heave or two over the humping billows at the foot, then the swirl of the eddy caught him, and lifted him clear over into the quiet water. One minute of wild thrills and the Long Rapid was left behind.

“Didn't take that quite right,” he grumbled. “Ought to have lifted her sooner. Next time I'll get through dry. Next time?” he repeated. “God knows if there'll ever be any next time of that water for me.” He paddled round the eddy toward the shore, intending to dump the water out of his canoe. “Hello! What in thunder is that?” Up against the driftwood, where it had been carried by the eddy, a canoe was floating bottom upwards. “God help us!” he groaned. “It's his canoe! My God! My God! Dick, boy, you're not lost! He'd run these rapids. That's his style. Oh, why didn't I call him? We could have done it together safe enough!” He stood up in his canoe and searched eagerly among the driftwood. “Dick! Dick!” he called over and over again in the wild cry of a wounded man. He paddled over to the canoe and examined it. “Ah, that's where he hit the rocks, just at the foot. But he shouldn't drown here,” he continued, “unless they hit him. Let's see, where would that eddy take him?” For another anxious minute he stood observing the run of the water. “If he could keep up three minutes,” he said, “he ought to strike that bar.” With a few sweeps of his paddle he was on the sand bar. “Ha!” he cried. A paddle lay on the sand just above the water mark. “That never floated there.” He leaped out and drew up his canoe, then, dropping on his knees, he examined the marks upon the bar. There on the sand was stamped the print of an open hand. “Now, God be thanked!” he cried, lifting his hands toward the sky, “he's reached this spot. He's somewhere on shore here.” Like a dog on scent he followed up the marks to the edge of the forest where the bank rose steeply over rough rocks. Eagerly he clambered up, his eyes on the alert for any sign. He reached the top. A quick glance he threw around him, then with a low cry he rushed forward. There, stretched prone on the moss, a little pile of brushwood near him, with his match case in his hand, lay his brother. “Oh, Dick, boy!” he cried aloud, “not too late, surely!” He dropped beside the still form, turned him gently over and laid his hand upon his heart. “Too late! Too late!” he groaned. Like a madman he rushed out of the woods, flung himself down the rocky bank and toward his canoe, seized his bag and scrambled back again. Again, and more carefully, he felt for the heartbeat. He thought he could detect a feeble flutter. Hurriedly he seized his flask and, forcing open the closed teeth, poured a few drops of the whiskey down the throat. But there was no attempt to swallow. “We'll try it this way.” With swift fingers he filled his syringe with the whiskey and injected it into the arm. Eagerly he waited with his hand upon the feebly fluttering heart. “My God! it's coming, I do believe!” he cried. “Now a little strychnine,” he whispered. “There, that ought to help.”

Once more he rushed to his canoe and brought his cooking kit and blanket. In five minutes he had a fire going and his tea pail swung over it with a little more than a cupful of water in it. In five minutes more he had half a cup of hot tea ready. By this time the heartbeat could be detected every moment growing stronger. Into the tea he poured a little of the stimulant. “If I can only get this down,” he muttered, chafing at the limp hands. Once more he lifted the head, pried open the shut jaws, and tried to pour a few drops of the liquid down. After repeated attempts he succeeded. Then for the first time he observed that his hands were covered with blood. Gently he lifted the head and, examining the back of it, detected a great jagged wound. “Looks bad, bad.” He felt the bone carefully and shook his head. “Fracture, I fear.” Heating some more water he cleansed and dressed the wound. Half an hour more he spent in his anxious struggle, with intense activity utilizing every precious moment, when to his infinite joy and relief the life began to come slowly back. “Now I must get him to the hospital.”

There were still five miles to paddle, but it was down stream and there were no portages. With swift despatch he cut a large armful of balsam boughs. With these and his blankets he made a bed in his canoe, cutting out the bow thwart, then lifting the wounded man and picking his steps with great care, he carried him to the canoe and laid him upon the balsam boughs on his right side. The moment the weight came upon that side a groan burst from the pallid lips. “Something wrong there,” muttered the doctor, turning him slightly over. “Ah, shoulder out. I'll just settle this right now.” By dexterous manipulation the dislocation was reduced, and at once the patient sank down upon the bed of boughs and lay quite still. A little further stimulation brought back the heart to a steadier beat. “Now, my boy,” he said to himself, as he took his place kneeling in the stern of the canoe, “give her every ounce you have.” For half an hour without pause, except twice to give his patient stimulant, the sweeping paddle and the swaying body kept their rhythmic swing, till down the last riffle shot the canoe and in a minute more was at the Landing.

“Duprez! Here, quick!” The doctor stood in the door of the stopping place, wet as if he had come from the river, his voice raucous and his face white.

“Mon Dieu!” exclaimed the Frenchman, “what de mattaire?”

The doctor swept a glance about the room. “Sick man,” he said briefly. “I want this bed. Get your buckboard, quick.” He seized the bed and carried it out before the eyes of the astonished Duprez.

Duprez was a man slow of speech but quick to act, and by the time the bed had been arranged on the buckboard he had his horse between the shafts.

“Now then, Duprez, give me a hand,” said the doctor.

“Certainment. Bon Dieu! Dat's de bon preechere! Not dead, heh?”

“No,” said the doctor, glancing sharply into the haggard face while he placed his fingers upon the pulse. “No. Now get on. Drive carefully, but make time.”

In a few minutes they reached the road that led to the hospital, which was well graded and smooth. Duprez sent along his pony at a lope and in a short space of time they reached the door of the hospital, where they were met by Orderly Ben Fallows on duty.

“Barney! By the livin' jumpin' Jemima Jebbs!” cried Ben. “What on earth--”

But the doctor cut him short. “Ben, get the Matron, quick, and get a bed ready with warm blankets and hot water bottles. Go, man! Don't gape there!”

Still gaping his amazement, Ben skipped in through the hall and up the stair as fast as his wooden leg would allow him. He reached the office door. “Miss Margaret,” he gasped, “Barney's at the door with a sick man. Wants a bed ready. We 'aven't got one--and--”

The look upon the matron's face interrupted the flow of his words. “Barney?” she said, rising slowly to her feet. “Barney?” she said again, her hand clutching the desk and holding hard. “What do you mean, Ben?” The words came slowly.

“He wants a bed for a sick man and we 'aven't--”

Margaret took a step toward him. “Ben,” she said, in breathless haste, “get my room ready. But first tell Nurse Crane to come to me quick. Go, Ben.”