“That will do. They are not so very different, and we can understand
each other quite well, I dare say. Where is he?”
The girl pointed towards the crest of the bluff.
“He is at the Gagnier farm.”
“May I trouble you to send some one for him?” Barth asked courteously.
She glanced about her at the group of French faces, and she shook her
head.
“I never can make them understand,” she objected. “I’d better go,
myself.”
But, in his turn, Barth offered an objection.
“Oh, don’t go and leave me,” he urged a little piteously. “I might go
off again, you know.”
“But you just said you couldn’t walk?” Nancy responded, in some
surprise, for, granted that the stranger was able to remove himself, she
could see no reason whatsoever that he should not feel free to do so.
“Oh, no. I can’t walk a step. My foot is broken,” he answered rather
testily, as a fresh twinge ran through his ankle.
“Then how can you go off, I’d like to know.”
Barth stared at her uncomprehendingly for a moment. Then a light broke
in upon his brain.
“Oh, I see. You don’t understand. I meant that I might faint away,” he
explained.
Nancy’s reply struck him as being a trifle unsympathetic.
“Well, what if you did?” she demanded. “I can’t be in two places at
once, and these people won’t eat you up. Make up your mind that you
won’t faint, and then you probably won’t.”
Barth peered up at her uneasily.
“Are you—are you a Christian Scientist?” he asked.
Nancy’s laugh rang out gayly.
“Didn’t I say my father was a doctor?” she reminded him. “Now please do
lie still and save your strength, and I’ll see what I can do about it
all.”
She was gone from his side only for a moment. Then she came flying back,
flushed and eager.
“Such luck!” she said. “Right at the foot of the hill, I found Père
Gagnier and the cabbage cart, just coming home from market. He will be
here in a minute, and he talks French. Some of these people will carry
you to the cart, and you can be driven right up to the door. That will
take so much less time than the sending for my father; and, besides,
even if he came down, you couldn’t be left lying here on the gravel walk
for an indefinite period. You would be arrested for blocking the path of
the pilgrims, to say nothing of having relays of cripples crutching
themselves along over you.”
In her relief at having solved the situation, she paid no heed to the
stream of nonsense coming from her lips. Barth’s stare recalled her to
self-consciousness.
“No, really,” he answered stiffly.
“Well, daddy?”
At the question, Dr. Howard looked up. Still a little breathless and
dishevelled by her hurried scramble up the hill, Nancy stood before him,
anxiety in her eyes and a laugh on her lips.
“How is the British Lion?”
“Most uncommonly disagreeable,” the doctor answered, with unwonted
energy.
“So I found out; but he has occasional lucid intervals. How is his
ankle?”
“Bad. For his own sake, I wish he had broken it outright. Nancy, what am
I going to do with the fellow?”
Nancy dropped down into a chair, and smoothed her ruffled hair into some
semblance of order.
“Cure him,” she answered nonchalantly.
The doctor shrugged his shoulders.
“It takes two to make a cure.”
“Then hire Père Gagnier to cart him back to Sainte Anne again, and let
her try her finger upon him.”
In spite of himself, the doctor laughed. Then he grew grave again.
“It’s not altogether funny, Nancy. You have unloaded a white elephant on
my hands, and I can’t see what to do with it.”
“How do you mean?” she questioned, for she was quick to read the anxiety
in her father’s tone.
“The man speaks no French that these people here can understand, and he
is going to be helpless for a few days. How is he going to have proper
care?”
“Send him in to Quebec. There must be a hospital there.”
“I won’t take the risk of moving him; not for ten days, at least.”
“Hm!” Nancy’s falling inflection was thoughtful. “And you came here to
get away from all professional worry. Daddy, it’s a shame! I ought never
to have had him brought here.”
Pausing in his tramp up and down the room, Dr. Howard rested his hand on
the pile of auburn hair.
“It was all you could do, Nancy. One must take responsibilities as they
come.”
Nancy broke the pause that followed. Rising, she pinned on her hat.
“Where are you going?”
“To the station. I’ll telegraph to Quebec for a nurse. We can have one
out here by night. Good by, daddy; and don’t let the Lion eat you up.”
More than an hour later, she came toiling up the hill and dropped
wearily down on the steps.
“No use, daddy! I have exhausted every chance, and there’s not a nurse
to be had. Quebec appears to be in the throes of an epidemic. However, I
have made up my mind what to do next.”
“What now?”
“I shall turn nurse.”
“Nancy, you can’t!”
“I must. You’re not strong enough, and such a curiosity as this man
mustn’t be left to die alone. Besides, it will be fun, and Mother
Gagnier will help me.”
“But you don’t know anything about nursing.”
“I won’t kill him. You can coach me behind the scenes, and I shall
scramble through, some way or other. Besides, the Good Sainte Anne will
help me. I’ve just been tipping her, for the way she has come to my
relief. Only this morning, I promised her half a dollar, if she would
deign to give me a little excitement.” Then the girl turned still more
directly to her father, and looked up at him with wayward, mocking,
tender eyes. “Daddy dear, this isn’t the only emergency we have met,
side by side. Mother Gagnier shall do all the rougher part; the rest you
shall leave to me. Truly, have you ever known me to fail you at the
wrong time?”