THE SURRENDER
JOSHUA COLE recovered consciousness in the railroad hospital at
Ragtown, and stared blankly at a streak of light that came in between
the new pine boards of the walls and pointed out a resinous knothole
in the floor. The shack which bore the dignified name of hospital was
on the outskirts of the settlement, a two-room affair that, if it had
been a little more expensively constructed, would have served well
as a stable for mountain horses, who do not need shelter except when
rare blizzards rage. Each workman on the entire job contracted for by
Demarest, Spruce and Tillou had a dollar of his pay subtracted each
month whether he approved or not, and this was his hospital fee. It
assured him of medical attention without other charges if he became
ill. There were perhaps fifteen hundred men working directly or
indirectly under Demarest, Spruce and Tillou. That made fifteen hundred
dollars to be divided between the doctor and the main contractors,
the latter, of course, being entitled to something for permitting the
doctor to conduct the hospital. And Joshua Cole was the fifth man to
be sent to the hospital since it had been established. No wonder that
Dr. J. Miles Stanhope had much leisure and much money to spend in the
Silver Dollar, where his preferences were roulette, and whisky with
a dash of angostura bitters, and a blonde Jezebel named Gladys, who
waltzed rather well.
He was at his favorite haunt, it appeared, when his patient awoke, for
Joshua not knowing where he was, called feebly again and again, but
received no answer. He strove to get out of the single white-enamel
iron bed in which he found himself, but discovered that he was sore all
over and rather weak. His efforts had made him sleepy, and he sank back
on the pillow and floated into coma again.
When he awoke the second time night had fallen, for no sunlight
streamed in at the crack where the loose batten hung. Lamplight,
however, came in through the quarter-way-open door between his “ward”
and the dispensary, or whatever the other room was called. He lifted
his voice again, and was answered by a shuffle of feet.
In came Dr. J. Miles Stanhope, and one of the frames of the door showed
an inclination to come with him. The doc righted himself, however, and
swayed toward his patient, his face beaming with solicitude.
Dr. J. Miles Stanhope was a young man inclined to corpulency. He
affected a Van Dyke beard, as all medical men should. His gray eyes
were kindly and he could not have injured a mouse--nor could he have
cured one. But he was a jolly good fellow and wished nobody ill. Who
couldn’t be like that, with a monthly income of over a thousand dollars
from a two-hundred-dollar investment?--and the doc had kicked like a
bay steer when the carpenters presented their bill for the erection of
the hospital. It might be pointed out that the time and money spent
by the doctor in acquiring his medical education would bring his
investment to a higher figure, but as he displayed no diploma from a
medical college on the wall, it may be assumed that he considered the
price of a diploma too insignificant to be taken into consideration.
At any rate, here he was at Joshua’s bedside, good-natured, democratic,
breezily cheerful, and a trifle shaky on his feet.
“Well, well, well! So you’re conscious, eh? Thash th’ stuff, ol’-timer!
How d’ye feel by now?”
“I’m sore as hell,” growled Joshua. “Where am I? Who are you?”
The last question seemed to grieve Dr. J. Miles Stanhope, and he
reprovingly explained that he was the medical adviser of the community,
something that Joshua should have known merely by glancing at his Van
Dyke beard. As to where Joshua was, he was in the hospital conducted
by the medical adviser of the community. And if he was sore, there was
good reason for it, since he had been shot to hell with a thirty-thirty
rifle. But he--the medical adviser of the community--had found the
bullet and extracted it, and he was of the opinion that his patient was
on the mend. Did he want some chow? The Silver Dollar’s cook was out of
fresh meat, and the doctor supposed the rest of the joints were in the
same fix, since no freighters had arrived for three days. But there was
salt meat in plenty to be had, storage eggs, bread, and oleomargarine.
Concerning the question of where Joshua had been shot, it was in the
left shoulder, very low, and well in toward the heart. The doc had no
idea who had shot him or why, and it seemed that it had not occurred
to anybody to investigate this phase of the matter. Two stiffs walking
up the grade from Camp Two to Camp One had found him lying in the
trail, and, after appropriating two dollars found in his pockets and
his flannel shirt and belt--these facts were discovered later--they had
dutifully carried him to the hospital, had called Dr. J. Miles Stanhope
from the fondling arms of Gladys, and had gone their way rejoicing. Now
what about the bacon and eggs?
Despite the bungling services of Dr. Stanhope, Joshua Cole’s wound
healed quickly, for he was in the pink of health and a stranger to
dissipation. While he was confined to the little bed in the hospital,
left alone for hours on hours at a time, he was allowed to read and
study, for the doctor could not see that it would do him any harm.
“Just go ahead and amuse yourself any way you feel like, ol’-timer,”
was the medical man’s kind invitation; so Joshua had sent for his
books and notes, and with these and his new periodicals to aid him,
progressed rapidly at bringing his astronomical information up to date.
He puzzled for hours, of course, over who had shot him, and why.
Naturally he thought often of The Whimperer and Slim Wolfgang--the
only people in that country who could possibly have a grudge against
him--but always he discarded them as his possible assailants for the
reason that it seemed illogical they could harbor a hatred so fierce as
to make them try to murder him. After long contemplation, he was forced
to adopt the conclusion that some deer hunter had shot him by accident
and had fled and left him to his fate rather than face the possible
consequences.
Madge Mundy came to see him one afternoon, and apologized for not
coming sooner, pleading that she was almost distracted over the grave
matters in her camp and was kept busy from morn till night.
She sat beside his bed and smoothed back his raven hair with her
soft, cool hand. Joshua was nearly well and suffering not at all,
but immediately he convinced himself that he was very ill and needed
these tender ministrations. His gray-blue eyes looked up into her
reddish-brown eyes pleadingly, and Madge, too, believed that he needed
these tender ministrations. At any rate she continued them, and Joshua
lay with eyes closed, trembling with ecstasy, afraid to look into her
face again for fear that she would see that he was in the seventh
heaven of delight.
They talked of Shanty Madge’s problem, but with Joshua, at least, the
words, “slide” and “tunnel” and “dynamite” were spoken with a caressing
cadence that carried an undercurrent of meaning.
“I guess all is lost,” Madge had told him when first the subject was
brought up.
And now she continued: “The entire top of the hill keeps slipping in
an easterly direction directly into the tunnel. We are able to stop it
with timbers and baled hay--which last we are using now as likely to
form a more solid wall to hold the slide--but as soon as we attempt to
go ahead and fire a shot, no matter how light, the roof caves again,
and down comes another avalanche. Of course we are working toward the
slide from the other end of the tunnel, too, and so far the roof holds
there. But it’s a long tunnel, and where we’re losing time is in not
being able to progress a foot with this end.
“Another big engineer has come from New York, and he says nothing more
can be done than has been done. Everybody is up in the air. And--and,
Joshua, I have given up and turned the outfit over to Demarest, Spruce
and Tillou. I’m on salary now. I’m through. I know when I’m whipped,
and I must make the best of it. In the end, of course, we’ll have to
sign over everything to them, and I guess they’re no more anxious
than I am to continue the heart-breaking work. That slide is like
the heads of the Hydra that Hercules slew. Its heads grew as fast as
one was lopped off, you know, until Hercules applied a firebrand to
prevent their growth. And I--I’m just through forever with railroading,
Joshua--that’s all. Joshua, we’ll be broke.”
She was near to tears, and Joshua cursed the bullet that had laid him
in a bed in Dr. J. Miles Stanhope’s flimsy hospital.
“Madge,” he said, “I’m going to tell you something; though, if you are
convinced, it will perhaps hurt you. Maybe I’m the Hercules to apply
the firebrand to your nine-headed monster. I firmly believe that I
could have stopped that slide when it first occurred. I believed so
the day I went to your camp and examined the top of the hill and the
tunnel. But there were big engineers on the job as well as two old-time
contractors, and I thought surely they would find a way to solve the
problem. Then when days and days passed and nothing was accomplished
I hated to offer my services for fear I’d be laughed at and told to
mind my business. I’m only a construction stiff in the eyes of those
fellows, you know, and they would have put me in my place in short
order.
“But things looked different when Demarest offered twenty-five hundred
dollars to the man who could stop the slide. Then it seemed to be open
to anybody, and I was on my way to your camp when I picked up this
bullet. If I had succeeded I would have felt wretched, to think that
I could have done the same at the first and had failed to offer my
services until the reward was announced. But I guess you would have
understood.
“Anyway, I still think that I may be able to hold the thing. What it
will cost to try my plan will be as nothing compared with the money
that is being expended now in fruitless efforts. So, to make good with
you, I’m going to give you my plan right now, and you can put it up
to the engineers and see what they think of it. And the reward, of
course, will be yours. Will you see if you can find a piece of paper
and a pencil out in that lean-to that the doctor calls his office and
dispensary?”
“Joshua,” she said, “I will do nothing of the sort. Your plan is yours,
whatever it is, and, knowing you as I do, I fully believe that it is
worth something or you would not consider it. In other words, boy, you
convinced me years ago, when you told me about the stars, that you are
not given to talking through your hat. I firmly believe”--she forced a
wan smile--“that--in how many centuries is it?--the big dipper will
look like a steamer chair, simply because you told me so. And now the
reward for stopping that famous slide has been raised to five thousand,
and if you can win it we’ll let her slide until you’re ready to show
us. That’s that!”
“But, Madge, listen to me. Take my plan now and, if it works, stop the
thing at once. A pile of money will have been spent before I’m out of
this confounded shack. Take it, and save your outfit. Then if you care
to split the reward with me--”
“I’ll split nothing with you, young feller! Neither will I take your
plan and present it to anybody! And as for losing the outfit, let her
rip! I’m through--me! Trying to stop the slide has cost so much that,
even if we pulled through, we’d be so badly in debt that it would
require years to get on our feet again. No, the outfit must go to give
us a clean slate, and we’ll let the future take care of itself.
“I’ve been too cocksure--too swell-headed. And now I’m being slapped
on the wrist for my presumption in strutting around with old-time
railroaders, old enough to be my grandfather, and talking wisely about
this and that thing about which I knew nothing. How they must have
laughed in their sleeves at me. Oh, it makes me sick now! I tell you
the past few weeks have taken all the pep and bravado out of me. I’m
whipped, and I’m through.
“And Ma tells me that you and she connived together against me and got
her a homestead here in the mountains. Well, I’m glad. I’m for that.
And I’m going to get out while the gettin’s good, and save what I can
of tools and teams and cash to run the homestead with. Back to the farm
for little Madge!”
“But--”
“I tell you I’m through--stubbornly through, Joshua. I bit off a chunk
and couldn’t swallow it. Now let’s drop that aspect of the matter. When
can you totter around, does the doctor think?”
“Why, Doc doesn’t think at all, except when he’s over the roulette
wheel. I can go any time I myself think that I can, and the sooner the
better for him. It’s a great strain for him to carry my meals to me
three times a day. I guess I’ll try it in about a week. I’ve been up
four times, I believe, and walked about a little. I won’t be able to
work myself, but I can put others to work. Three men will be enough to
put my idea across.”
“Then you get on the job as soon as you can and stop that slide. You
need the money.”
“I do,” fervently agreed Joshua. “But I’ll probably never get it. I
expect my big idea will prove a frost.”
“I’ll see that you get a chance to try it, anyway,” Madge promised.
As she took her leave Dr. J. Miles Stanhope came in with Joshua’s slim
mail--a scientific magazine and a letter from the land office. The
letter informed him that his claim to a hundred and sixty acres in the
San Antonio Mountains had been allowed.