Archie was very humble as he reflected that he hadn't done justice to
the intelligence and charm, to say nothing of the professional skill of
Dr. Katherine Reynolds in his hurried glimpse of her at Heart o' Dreams.
His fears that a woman doctor, who was really only a girl of the age of
Ruth and Isabel, would not be equal to the emergency were dismissed an
hour after she reached Huddleston. She brought the camp nurse with her
and was fortified with bags of instruments and hospital supplies.
She went about her examination without a question; made it as though she
were daily in the habit of dealing with wounded men; specifically called
for boiling water, laid out sponges and bottles and oddly shaped
trinkets of steel, and the Governor's room in the ramshackle hotel was
quickly transformed into a surgery. Perky had gone aboard the tug, which
was to remain in the bay until the outcome of the Governor's injury
could be learned. Putney Congdon kept Archie company in the hall outside
the sick room.
The morning was breaking when the door opened.
"There's about one chance in a thousand," said Dr. Reynolds, looking
very tired but smiling bravely; "but we've taken the chance. There are
reasons, I assume, why this matter should be kept quiet, and of course
you know the danger,--to you and all of us!"
"It's splendid of you to accept the responsibility; be sure I appreciate
it!"
"But I have no right to take it. I've done all I know how to do, but
there should be another head and a surer hand. Dr. Mosgrove of Chicago
has a summer home twenty miles from Heart o' Dreams. He's an old friend
of my family and one of the most skilful surgeons in America. I've
written him a note and I'm sure he will come instantly."
The note was sent to the tug for delivery and at eight o'clock the
surgeon was at Huddleston. He was in the sick room for a long, a very
long time. Archie pounced upon him eagerly when he reappeared. He eyed
the young man quizzically, apparently immensely amused about something.
"What does all this mean?" he whispered. "Pirates in these waters where
I've been summering for years! Men shot and the police not notified! A
girl doctor attending the case! May I trouble you for your name, sir?"
Archie replied with all possible dignity that his name was Ashton Comly,
and demanded a professional opinion as to the sick man's chances of
recovery. The doctor became instantly serious.
"The bullet pierced the right chest wall and of course there was
immediate and copious hemorrhage. You needn't trouble about the delay in
getting to the doctor; nature went to work at once, forming clots that
plugged automatically the gaping mouth of the severed vessels. You men
were fortunate to find Dr. Reynolds; she has handled the case admirably.
Dear me! I'm constantly astonished at these girls! You don't know
perhaps that your attending physician is a society girl who studied
medicine over the solemn protest of her family? Sat on my knee as a
child, and it tickles me immensely to see how coolly she takes this. I
approve of her work in every particular."
"Thank you," cried Archie. "Oh, thank you for that! One thing more:
would you advise me to summon the patient's sister, his only close
relative, I believe? I must do it at once if you think, possibly--"
"Yes. There being always the uncertainties, I should certainly do so.
I'll run up in my launch this evening."
Archie accompanied Dr. Mosgrove aboard the tug and gave Perky the
hopeful news of the Governor's condition. Eliphalet Congdon demanded to
know what had happened in the night, and when he was to be released, and
Archie spent some time trying to satisfy him that his solemn covenant
with the Governor would be carried out in every particular.
Leary, who had returned to the _Arthur B. Grover_ shortly after
daylight, showed the strain of the night.
"It was kind o' lonesome buryin' that poor devil over yonder. There
wasn't a thing on 'im to tell who he was. That other chap came to and I
did the best I could fer 'im, and gave him money; tole him to clear out
and keep his mouth shet or he'd do a lot o' time for mixin' up with
Carey. I tore down that lunatic's fort and Carey wouldn't know the place
himself."
The old fellow's succinct report gave to the burial of the victim of the
night's encounter an added gruesomeness. A dead man hidden away under
cover of darkness, without benefit of clergy, meant nothing to Leary,
who smoked his pipe, and asked in mournful accents what was to be done
with old man Congdon and Carey. These questions troubled Archie not a
little, but when he suggested that the detective had also to be disposed
of Leary grinned broadly.
"Ole Governor don't do nothin' like nobody else; y' must a-learned that
by this time. That chap ain't no detective; he's a gun man we sent to
chum with Carey."
Archie bared his head to the cool morning air. It was almost too much to
learn that Briggs, who had so gallantly played the part of a government
detective, was really an ally, shrewdly introduced into the Governor's
strategy to awaken fear in Eliphalet Congdon.
"Perky ain't no baby," Leary said, "an' you don't ketch 'im runnin' into
no detective."
"But Perky wired the Governor that he thought he was being watched?"
Leary grinned again.
"Ole Governor was foolin' you. That telegram was jes' to let Governor
know Briggs was on the job. Got t' have his little joke, ole Governor.
It tickles 'im t' fool us boys."
Archie went at once to the Huddleston station, where he satisfied
himself that the lonely agent knew nothing of the transactions of the
night. The receipt and despatch of telegrams by the Governor had been a
welcome relief from the routine business of the office, and recognizing
Archie as a friend of his patron Mr. Saulsbury, he expressed the hope
that they were finding the fishing satisfactory.
Archie drew from the breast pocket of his waistcoat the envelope the
Governor's sister had given him the night she dined in the New York
house. In his subsequent adventures he had guarded it jealously as
containing his one clue to the Governor's identity. Now that the evil
hour the woman dreaded had come, Archie found himself hesitating as he
listened to the agent's complaint of the fate that had stranded him in
so desolate a spot. The man turned to answer the importunity of the
instrument which was sounding his call and Archie tore open the
envelope. In a flowing hand which expressed something of the grace and
charm of the woman who had given it to him in circumstances so
remarkable, he read:
Mrs. Julia Van Doren Graybill
Until October 1, Southampton, L. I.
The agent was taking a train order and was unaware of the agitation of
the man at the window. It was the Van Doren that burnt itself into
Archie's consciousness. It was an old name of honorable connotations,
one with which he had been familiar all his life. It was chiseled in the
wall of the church near the pew held for a hundred years by his own
family; it was a name of dignity, associated with the best traditions of
Manhattan Island; and this, presumably, was the Governor's name.
Graybill was unfamiliar, and this puzzled him, for he knew and could
place half a dozen Van Dorens, probably relatives in some degree of the
Governor, but he recalled no woman of the family who had married a
Graybill. Julia had said at the Governor's that she remembered him; but
even now with her name before him he could not place her.
He made his message as brief as possible:
Regret that I must act on my promise of several weeks ago and use
the address given in confidence. Encouraged to believe that the
patient will recover. Suggest, however, that you come at once.
To this he added instructions as to the most direct route to Huddleston,
and signed himself Ashton Comly.
He and Congdon were at the supper table when he received the answer:
Thank you. I am just leaving. J. V. D. G.
Archie was not permitted to enter the sick room, but from time to time
he received assurances that the patient's condition was "satisfactory,"
and at intervals Dr. Reynolds recited with professional brevity data as
to temperature, respiration and the like. A second nurse was
imperatively needed, but when they were considering the danger of adding
to the number of persons who knew that a wounded man was fighting for
his life in the abandoned village, Mrs. Leary suggested Sally--Sally who
had been in tears from the moment the Governor was carried into the
house. Dr. Reynolds accepted Sally on sight and the girl quickly
adjusted herself to the routine of the sick chamber.
At eleven o'clock Archie saw the Heart o' Dreams launch approaching
Huddleston and leaving Congdon to answer any call from the Governor's
bedside, hurried to meet it.
Ruth and Isabel had crossed alone and their stress of mind and heart was
manifest before they landed.
"I felt it; I knew that it would come!" cried Ruth. "If only you hadn't
gone there! It wasn't worth the sacrifice."
"But we have every reason to hope! We must support him with our faith
that he will come out of it!"
"I should never have permitted either of you to come to this place,"
said Isabel. "I shall always feel that it was my fault."
The obligation to cheer them raised his own spirits as he explained the
nature of the Governor's injury while they sat on the hotel veranda. He
described the fight at the barricade with reservations, mentioning not
at all the fact that a man had died as the result. They understood as
fully as he that the whole affair must be suffered to slip into oblivion
as quickly as possible.
"The complications are so endless!" said Isabel with a sigh. "In that
mass of mail you delivered last night I found a letter from Mrs. Congdon
saying that she would arrive today--almost at once, in fact!"
"The prospect isn't wholly pleasing!" he exclaimed, looking at his
watch. "I've played the very devil in the Congdons' affairs. I suppose I
should lift my hat politely as she steps from the train and tell her
that I'm the brute who attempted to make her a widow. She will of course
recognize me instantly as the gentleman who escaped with her in a taxi
after the kidnaping of her daughter."
"It seems to me," said Isabel soberly, "that from the very moment you
and I unfolded our napkins on the tragic night of your sister's dinner
the world has been upside down. If we should ever tell all that has
happened, and how we have been whirled about and made to do things I'm
sure we were never intended to do, there wouldn't be one sane person
anywhere who'd believe it. I feel like crying all the time! And I'm not
sure that I'm not responsible for all of it, every bit of it! Why, I may
as well tell you now that I, poor, weak, foolish I, bade Putney Congdon
take horse and ride gaily through the world, carving people with his
stout sword! And I played the same trick on you!"
"Oh, he told me all about that!" laughed Archie, glad of something to
relieve the tension. "He told me without shame that he had almost fallen
in love with you as a distraction from his troubles. But I didn't
confess that you had started me for the penitentiary. There's the train,
and you must permit me to satisfy Mrs. Congdon that her husband is in a
mood for immediate reconciliation before I break the news that he is
here."
Mrs. Putney Congdon more than justified the impression he had formed of
her in their encounter in Central Park by the manner in which she heard
his story. He told it with all brevity on the station platform. First
assuring her of Edith's safety, he made a clean breast of the Bailey
Harbor visit, but skipped discreetly all that had occurred between that
calamitous excursion and his meeting with her in New York.
It was so incredible that it was not until he described his journey to
Huddleston in Putney's company that she was able to see any humor in the
series of events that had led them all into the north.
"Poor dear Putney! And he doesn't know yet that you nearly killed him!"
"Oh, there are a lot of things he doesn't know. Your father-in-law has
given his solemn promise that he will not again attempt to meddle in
your affairs. The umbrella that symbolized his tyranny is at the bottom
of the lake and if he should die you and your children wouldn't be
thrown upon charity."
"This is all too wonderful to be true," she exclaimed. "After all the
misery I've endured it can't be possible that happiness is just ahead of
me. I had become resigned--"
"Your resignation after Edith was snatched away from you there in the
park struck me as altogether charming! Your conduct pleased me mightily.
We were both awful frauds, fooling the police and running away!"
"It was delicious! I had always had a wild wicked desire to fool a
policeman. Isn't that a dreadful confession! What must you think of me
for admitting such a thing!"
"My own derelictions make me very humble; it's only a survival of the
primitive in all of us. I shouldn't worry about it. It's terribly easy
to become a lost sheep, even a black one. But this is not an hour for
philosophical discussion. Let me assure you that the nasty telegram that
caused you to leave Bailey Harbor in so bitter a spirit was the work of
your father-in-law. Putney had nothing to do with it."
"Oh, I rather guessed that; but I ran away thinking I might rouse my
husband to a little self-assertion."
"And when he asserted himself sufficiently to go back to you I was right
there to shoot him!"
"You are a highly amusing person! It would interest me a good deal to
know your real name and a lot of other things about you."
"In due season you shall know everything. Just now I haven't the heart
to keep you from your husband, and I'm going to send him to you
immediately. And as I shrink from telling a man I like so much that I
tried to kill him not so long ago, I'm going to turn that agreeable
business over to you!"