Part 4

He saw a face that he liked still less--eyes small and deep-set, and overhung with heavy, coarse brows; a nose lean and high and twisted so far out of line that it made a left obtuse angle from forehead to mouth; and long, thin lips that opened over small, uneven, discoloured teeth. But the most striking feature of the face was a scar. It lay across the left cheek from the corner of the eye to the point of the heavy chin. It was a straight scar--as straight as if made by a keen knife drawn along the edge of a ruler. And it was old, and a dead white that contrasted sharply with the liquor-reddened skin of the cheek.

“I’ll hold the lamp,” said the man with the scar.

The doctor unbuckled his case, threw off his coat and rolled up his sleeves. He did not ask what was the matter, but laid back the bedclothes and began his look for a wound. And he found it--a gunshot wound in the right side, at the waist-line, and mortally deep.

“My! This oughta been ’tended to hours ago,” he said severely. “When did it happen?”

“Yesterday. He’s been unconscious ever since.”

“Git me some hot water.”

Then, for an hour, not a word was spoken. The doctor worked with all his energy, forgetting where he was, forgetting hunger and weariness. The table had been moved close to the bed and the lamp placed upon it. So the man with the scar had nothing to do. He walked the floor, his head down and held a little sidewise, as if he were listening; and as he walked his eyes continually shifted from side to side.

“I’m done,” announced the doctor at last. “This medicine you can give him every three hours--one teaspoonful. It’s for the fever.”

The man with the scar came over to stand at the foot of the bed. “Leave something that’ll make him sleep,” he said.

“All right.” The doctor had thought of asking for coffee. But now he was eager to get away. There was that in the manner of his guide which he did not like--an anxiety that seemed apart from concern for the sick man.

Soon they were started on the return trip, the doctor blindfolded as before and tied by the wrists to his pommel. As they went he marked as well as he could ascents and descents, abrupt turns, level stretches and rough. Bobby travelled slowly, being tired with all the long miles he had covered since noon; and once or twice he stumbled, jerking at his headline.

The man with the scar cursed him. “Why don’t you ride a mule?” he called back. “A mule’s sure-footed, and he’s got more sense in a minute than a horse’s got in a week.”

“Ain’t nothin’ the matter with this horse’s smartness,” retorted the doctor. “Bobby knows as much as a man.”

“Oh, does he?” said the other with a mirthless laugh. “Well, you’d better look out or I’ll blindfold him, too.”

When the animals were once more brought to a standstill the man with the scar did not dismount, but rode close enough to untie the thongs at the doctor’s pommel and to jerk away the handkerchief.

They were beside the railroad track where the dim road branched east. The man with the scar addressed the doctor sharply. “Doc,” he said, “if you know what’s good for you you’ll just forget all about to-night.” Then: “So long.” But he stayed where he was in the road.

“So long,” returned the doctor. He headed north. When beyond the cemetery he looked round, the mule and its scar-faced rider were gone.

A milk wagon was rumbling through the town as the doctor dismounted at the wide gate which led to Bobby’s stable, and a boy on a bicycle was wheeling from house to house along the street, throwing San Francisco papers of the previous afternoon into each yard. The morning of another day had come.

There was a light still burning, however, in the kitchen of the little flower-covered cottage. And soon Letty came hurrying out. “Have you had any rest?” she asked. “I’ve got some hot coffee ready for you.”

He gave a tender smile. “You’ll make a fine doctor’s wife!” he declared.

“Not if I worry, though. And I have worried--all night.” She tried to smile back at him, but her lips trembled. “Because I didn’t like the looks of the man that came here after you. Where was the case?”

“I’m afraid you’ll worry worse when I tell you,” he answered. “I don’t know where I’ve been.”

“You don’t _know_!”

Briefly, over a cup of steaming coffee in the kitchen, he related the happenings of the night just gone. Letty listened, wide-eyed and pale. “How do you figger it out?” he asked her as he concluded his story. “The Blue Top call was funny, but this was worse.”

The next moment she rose to her feet and let her cup and saucer fall with a clatter. “That’s who they are!” she cried. “Why didn’t I think of it before! The whole thing’s out at the mine.” Then she ran from the kitchen into the dining-room and came running back again, a newspaper in one hand. “Read it!” she bade in the wildest excitement. “Oh, read it!”

He took the paper from her. It was the local publication of the day before, and the article she indicated occupied the upper half of the front page. “Laurence Eastman Kidnapped,” read a line that reached from one side of the sheet to the other. Under this, in smaller type, was a subhead: “Outlaws Demand Five Thousand Dollars of Millionaire Father. Threaten to Kill Child if Theft is Made Public.”

The doctor read no further. “That’s what was the matter with Mrs. Eastman,” he said in a low voice. “The boy’s out in that cañon!”

Astounded, each gazed into the face of the other for a moment. “You didn’t hear him?” ventured Letty. “Maybe he was hid in the brush.”

“The shanty was pretty good-sized--lookin’ at it from the outside,” returned the doctor. “Inside, the room was awful small. If that man comes after me again----”

“Don’t go out alone with him,” she pleaded. “Let somebody trail you.”

He shook his head. “He’d find it out and shoot. No, I’ve got to take the chance. Oh, Letty, if I could only bring that little woman her kid!”

Letty’s dark eyes were misty. “You couldn’t telephone her, could you?” she asked.

He shook his head. “So far, everything’s guesswork. I dassent raise her hopes on that. It’s awful when a person’s hopes’re raised--and then go smash. I’ve got to find out where I was. There’s a scheme I heard of once----”

“Is it scattering beans?”

“No.” He laughed and reached across the kitchen table to cover a slim hand with one of his. “No”--more soberly--“it’s something different--it’s about Bobby. You’d have to let me take care of him for a few days and treat him real bad. I won’t tell you what I’d do to him, then it won’t fret you.”

“Take Bobby,” she urged. “But oh, don’t have any trouble out there with that man!” And she grew white and clung to his hand as she had never done before.

He stayed only long enough to reassure her, and went when the sun shone against the kitchen window. He had been twenty-four hours without sleep.

It was an anxious day for Letty. The doctor spent it in work after he had had his rest, and at six o’clock opened his medicine-case to put into it one or two things that had been lacking the previous night. When sundown came and the long, grateful twilight, he paid a visit to Bobby. Then he lighted the lamp in his office and sat down to wait. Dark brought the looked-for summons. The front gate squeaked on its hinges. Heavy steps sounded along the narrow boardwalk leading up to the porch. Next, following a short pause, came a knock.

The doctor opened the door. The man with the scar was in waiting. He kept out of range of the light that fell through the door, but the doctor could see that the face of his visitor was again half hidden by a handkerchief and that the slouch hat was worn low to shadow it.

“My friend’s suffering awful,” he said by way of greeting. “All over the place, Doc. I felt almost like putting him out of his misery.”

At once the doctor went for Bobby. An eager whinny hailed the opening of the stable door. But when the little horse was led out of his stall he hung back and all but refused to leave it. “You’ll have some supper out yonder,” promised his rider, and tied a generous feed of oats to the thongs of the big stock saddle.

A slender figure came swiftly across the corral. It was Letty, and she lifted her face to the doctor’s in mute anxiety. He whispered encouragement and bent to kiss her, then rode out to join his waiting guide.

The second trip to the cañon was, in every way, like the first except that it was made more quickly. When the clearing was reached and the doctor’s eyes were unbound he saw that there was no patch of light beyond the low shanty. “Didn’t dare leave a lamp,” explained the man with the scar as he cautiously opened the door. After he had peered in; listening, he entered quietly and struck a match.

The sick man was on the floor, stretched prone. His eyes were wide, but unseeing. His breathing was laboured.

They lifted him gently and laid him on the bed. Then the doctor, coat off, once more began his ministering, while the man with the scar seated himself on a bench by the door and smoked. The doctor paid the other no attention, but apparently gave his whole thought to his patient. Nevertheless, as he worked he kept on the alert for sounds, and, when his back was turned toward his guard, examined the wall against which stood the head of the bed.

He noticed that which made him certain that the shanty had a second, if a very small, room. Two of the upright foot-wide boards of the wall had been sawed across at a height of six feet from the floor. A few moments later he purposely dropped the cork of a bottle. As he stooped to feel about for it he gave a quick look at the lower ends of the sawed boards. Unlike the others in the wall, they cleared the floor by half an inch. It was probable that they formed a narrow, blind door; that the wall itself was a partition. He determined to be certain about it. “Fetch me some right cold water,” he said to the man with the scar.

For a moment the other remained seated and made no answer. Then, “All right,” he said reluctantly and, picking up a square kerosene can that had been fitted with a handle, went out.

The doctor waited, his eyes on his patient, his ears strained for the sound of vanishing footsteps. He heard none. The other was doubtless just outside, watching. The doctor walked to the table, took a square of prepared plaster from his case and, having turned the light down a little, laid the plaster upon the top of the globe.

The light went out. He stepped swiftly to the head of the bed and put a hand against the blind door. It swung inward a foot or more, then back into place again.

“Here!” The threatening voice was at the outside door, which opened and closed with a bang. “What’re you trying to do?”

The doctor took one long stride in the direction of the speaker. “Got a match?” he inquired innocently. “That blamed lamp went out.”

The other muttered and struck a match. When its light flashed the doctor was standing beside the table, the square of plaster in one hand.

“You ’tend to business!” warned the man with the scar. His thin lips were parted in a snarl.

“Now, look-a-here,” returned the doctor; “I’ve stood all the abuse I’m goin’ to. There ain’t another physician in this county that would a-came out here a second time with his eyes blinded and his hands tied--not if you had _ten_ friends dyin’. And I expect you to show me decent treatment.” He leaned forward across the table and looked the other man squarely in the face.

“Last night you wanted hot water. To-night you want cold.”

“Wal, excuse me, but I’m the best judge of what the sick gent needs. If I ain’t, why the dickens do you come after me?”

For the space of a minute they stood in silence, face to face. Then, as if partly convinced, the man with the scar once more took up his oil can. When his quick, shuffling steps had died away the doctor tried another plan. He stooped over the sick man until his lips were close to the crack that ran down the full length of the blind door, and began to speak the name that the grief-crazed mother at the mine had spoken: “Laurie! Laurie! Laurie!”

He listened. There was no sound within or without. He spoke again, louder: “Laurie!”

First, a movement beyond the partition--a soft, rustling, creeping movement. Then, close to the wall, a little, weak, long-drawn sob!

The doctor straightened, his heart pounding so furiously that it hurt him, his face hot with the joy of his discovery. Smiling, he glanced down.

He looked into a pair of startled eyes that were staring up at him. “Who are you?” came the husky demand, and the sick man suddenly lifted himself to an elbow, almost as if he were about to leap from the bed.

The doctor could only stare back. The man was conscious. Had he heard him? What was to be done?

Before he could frame any course of action the man with the scar entered.

“Your friend’s lots better,” announced the doctor, turning toward the door. “Come and see.”

“That so?” The other crossed to the foot of the bed.

“Nick,” began the sick man, speaking with great effort, “don’t you trust anybody. You get out of here. Do you understand? Never mind me. I’m going to die. Look at my nails.” He put out a trembling hand.

“Don’t you worry,” answered the man with the scar. “The Doc came in blindfolded.”

“You’re taking chances,” persisted the younger man. “Go--just--leave me--water, and--a gun.” He sank back.

“You got to keep more quiet,” said the doctor. “Here.” He lifted a cup to the dry lips.

When he left the bedside the man with the scar followed and leaned close. “Bill’s going to die,” he said in a low voice. “Look at his nails.”

Instead, the doctor looked at the speaker. There was a sinister light in those little, alert eyes; a cruel twist to the thin mouth. And the whole expression of the scarred face bespoke a sudden determination--a fiendish determination. Bill was past saving. Soon the cabin would be left behind. And the doctor--why let him go back to the town?

“He’s going to die,” repeated the man with the scar. “And you know it.”

“My friend,” answered the doctor, “I’ll tell you the truth. He ain’t got more’n one chance in a hunderd--and that’s a pretty slim one. If he ain’t better to-morrow I’ve got to operate.” He sat down.

The man with the scar sat down in front of him. The table was between them. He leaned his arms on it. “Don’t take me for a fool,” he advised.

The doctor folded his arms. “Now, look a-here,” he retorted, smiling; “don’t take _me_ for a fool. I know what’s the matter with you.”

At that the man with the scar rose so suddenly that his bench tipped backward.

“Yas,” the doctor went on. “I know why you brung me here blindfolded and what you’re hidin’.”

The right hand of the man with the scar stole to his hip.

The doctor ignored the action. He went on speaking with clear directness: “You two fellers’ve located a gold mine. And you’ve got the crazy idea that I’m a-goin’ to bring out a bunch of locators. Wal, git over it. I’m not a prospector: I’m a doc.”

The hand on the weapon rested quiet. The man with the scar drew a gasping breath. Then long and keenly he studied the face of the doctor. After a time he dropped his arm, picked up his bench and reseated himself.

Some little time passed. The doctor smoked and nursed a knee. Once he got up to take the pulse of his patient and again to mark the temperature. But his every movement was leisurely, and he showed no wish to leave. The man with the scar sat, leaning on the table, apparently lost in thought.

All at once he rose. “Well, come on,” he said.

Again the doctor examined the sick man. “This’ll be a bad day for your friend,” he explained. “I’m leavin’ something to chase the pain.”

When they were ready to mount the other addressed him harshly. “Doc,” he said, “if you and me run into anybody on our way back it’ll be you that gets my first shot.”

“That’s a bargain,” answered the doctor good-naturedly.

But, riding out of the cañon, he felt far from confident. The previous night his guide had led briskly. Now the mule was lagging. The doctor found himself moving his body forward in his saddle to urge Bobby on. They had gone only a small part of the way homeward when the mule came to a stop. Bobby halted, too, and the doctor waited like a man who expects a blow in the dark. He listened. The other did not dismount. There was no audible movement ahead. But he felt that sinister face turned upon him.

“Say, that friend of your’n has got a wonderful constitution,” he remarked.

There was a short interval of silence. It seemed many minutes to the doctor. Then, “Get up!” said the voice ahead.

Letty was waiting for him when he turned in at the corral gate, though it was long past midnight. He had been under a severe strain, but she had been under a greater. He saw that when he lifted the lantern she brought him and looked into her face.

“Good news,” he told her, speaking low. “The baby’s there.”

Five minutes later he was back in his office once more and had Blue Top on the telephone. “Come,” was his message. “I’ve got a clue, Mr. Eastman. But don’t bring nobody with you.”

It seemed to him that he had only just lain down to rest when he was up again, admitting Eastman, who had come as quick as a horse could carry him. The father was more dishevelled than ever; and on his haggard, unshaven face stood out the sweat of effort and anxiety. Three days of agony had aged him.

“Oh, my boy!” were his first words.

“I know where he is, but I don’t know how to git there,” said the doctor. Briefly he explained.

Eastman, half distracted, paced the floor as he listened. “Oh, tell me what to do,” he cried when the doctor had finished. “My wife--it’s killing her.”

“The medicine I left’ll keep the sick feller up till this evenin’.”

“I’ll follow you to-night, then. Oh, I must! I must! The boy’ll need me. They dragged him over all those miles. Think of it! And wore out his poor little legs.”

“We’ve got to go about this thing mighty careful,” warned the doctor. “You trail me and somebody’ll be shot. Mebbe it’ll be me, mebbe it’ll be your baby.”

The father halted before the younger man. “But how can you help him,” he demanded, “with your hands tied?”

“Wal, I’ve thought of a scheme. The man that come after me searched me for a pistol both nights. But he’s never looked into the oat-bag. So, I’ll put a gun in that bag, and when I stand up from feedin’ Bobby I’ll have the drop on him.”

“He may get you first. Then what? Oh, I’ll never see my boy again!”

“Wal, if you can think of a better way, go ahead.”

But at the end of an hour Eastman agreed with the doctor that there was no better plan. “All right,” he said, “--all right--I’ll trust to you. Now I must telephone my wife that there’s hope.”

When the doctor awoke early that afternoon it was to learn that Mrs. Eastman had arrived and was at the hotel. Eastman himself called the doctor up to announce her coming and the latter asked the parents to remain secluded during the remainder of the day.

There was reason to believe that the kidnappers might have a confederate on watch in the town.

But Eastman had no thought beyond the finding of his child. “Suppose that sick man died to-day,” he said. “Won’t the other man leave and take Laurie with him? Doctor, I think I ought to start fifty men out on a search.”

The doctor opposed the suggestion. “Take my advice,” he urged kindly. “Tell Mrs. Eastman to be brave.”

Eastman only groaned and hung up. But later on he telephoned again and again, always with some fresh idea that was filling the heart of the waiting mother with forebodings.

Letty telephoned, too. “Don’t go alone to-night,” she begged. “It’s too dangerous.”

“I got to, Letty,” he declared. “If Eastman starts men out, which way’ll they go? It might take ’em a week to find that shanty.”

Night settled early, for long before twilight the sky became heavily overcast and a wind rose, sweeping the dust up in clouds as it drove through the town, and auguring a rainstorm. The doctor placed a light in his office, then took his station at a window in an unlighted front room.

The minutes dragged. Eight o’clock struck, and nine.

“Mebbe that sick feller did die,” he said to Letty over the telephone. “But----”

He hung up the receiver abruptly. There was a sound of galloping in the street. It ceased at the gate, when heavy steps came hurrying to his porch. It was the man with the scar.

“Doc,” he began, panting with his hard ride, “you said you’d operate----”

“Ready in a jiffy,” answered the doctor, and turned away to pick up hat and case.

The next instant there was a choking cry from the porch, then loud curses and the sound of fierce scuffling. The doctor whirled.

The man with the scar was flat on his back at the threshold, his wrists manacled, his shins ironed; over him stood a smooth-shaven, thick-set, middle-aged man armed with a revolver--the man who had halted the doctor on the Blue Top road; and Eastman was there.

“He stole my boy!” the father called out furiously. “I’m going to kill him!” He flung himself forward.

The man with the revolver pushed him back. And, “No! No!” expostulated the doctor. “Eastman! You’re makin’ a mistake!”

The prisoner gave a loud, hard laugh. “You bet your life he’s making a mistake!” he declared.

“We got you just the same,” said the man with the revolver triumphantly.

“Put him on a horse,” ordered Eastman, maddened more than ever by the taunting laugh. “He’ll take me to my boy or I’ll kill him.”

The captured man ignored the father. His look was on the doctor, and it was full of hate. “Ah, h--l!” he exclaimed disgustedly. “I could kick myself! Last night I had my finger on the trigger. But like a fool----”

Eastman was sobbing in baffled rage. “My baby!” he cried. “Four days with this brute! Think of it!”