RIDDLES
CHARMIAN was gazing across the fire at Shonto, half bewildered at his
blunt statement. She had known that Andy was concerned in the disaster
that had befallen the party, for long since she had connected the
little tablets which he took daily with the loss of the medicine case.
“Has Andy told you anything of his physical troubles?” Shonto
questioned.
“A little,” she replied. “When we were at Jorny Springs with Leach
and Morley. He told me about the period in his boyhood that he can’t
remember. He told me that it was necessary for him to take his tablets
daily. Some kind of heart trouble, isn’t it?”
The doctor nodded gravely. “Andy doesn’t hesitate to tell about it,” he
said. “I imagined that you knew. Well--”
“Pardon me just a moment,” she interrupted. “You haven’t said outright
that it is heart trouble, Doctor.” “Have you any reason to think
otherwise?
“Yes--now. It seems to me that you are still reticent--virtually
evasive. You aren’t a practised dissimulator, Doctor. Why do you try
it?”
“I’ll be frank with you,” he said, “if you’ll be as frank with me. Will
you?”
“Of course.”
“I shall have to ask for your display of frankness first,” he went on.
“You must answer this question before I shall feel at liberty to tell
you why I have been close-mouthed: In the big cañon that night before
you and I left, did Andy ask you to marry him?”
Her face went red, but she shook her head.
“I believe you,” he said. “But Andy would be too excited to think of
asking you to marry him, perhaps. He--both of you--would take marriage
for granted. So I must ask another question: Didn’t he tell you that he
loves you, and didn’t you surrender yourself to him?”
Her long lashes covered her dark eyes, and for a space she declined to
answer. Then she lifted her head and looked him straight in the face.
“I suppose,” she said slowly, “that, according to the standardized
procedure, I ought to say, ‘What right have you to ask me that?’ But
you have the right--I suppose. Anyway, I consider it a fair question,
and I’ll answer it as fairly. He did, and I did. But--but how did you
know, Doctor?”
The doctor’s laugh was brief and bitter. “When you two returned to
camp,” he informed her, “the announcement couldn’t have been plainer if
you had pinned placards on your breasts. I knew what had happened. So
did Mary Temple.”
“Well?”--almost defiantly.
“Well, I suppose there’s nothing to be said. Theoretically I should
back gracefully away, murmuring my congratulations. But I’ll not do
that. I don’t give up so easily, Charmian. I am convinced that you
and I are mated, and that you and Andy are not. I think that it
would be a great misfortune for both of us if we don’t become man and
wife. But I’ll play the game fair and square--with both you and Andy.
And this desire to play square is what has kept my mouth closed on
so many occasions. I won’t tell you why I think it unwise for you to
marry Andy Jerome. On the contrary, I’ll go out and leave you two here
together and make every effort to get back with more medicine before
you can learn for yourself that I am the man you should have for a
husband instead of him. It’s hard, Charmian--hard to play square, when
I hold my rival’s future in the hollow of my hand. But the ethics of
my profession demand that I do all in my power to save him, and my
conscience demands the same.
“So to-morrow I must leave you, hoping that I can get back in time.
There is no other way. I’ll make it back to Mary and Andy, and send
Andy on here. With the aid of a compass and the directions that I can
give him he will never miss the pass into the valley. You must hoist a
garment or a blanket on a pole, which he will be able to see from the
top of the wall and all the way down. Or a smudge of damp leaves will
send up a stream of smoke to direct him to you.
“Andy is a master mountaineer and woodsman. It is born in him; he
inherited it from his Alps-climbing ancestors. He will be able to
supply you with food while you are waiting for me to return. But listen
carefully: As soon as he comes, have him show you how to make rabbit
snares and pitfalls and deadfalls, so that you will be able to get
game if he becomes unable to do it for you. You two get to work at
once gathering all the nuts and acorns you can--and you’d better be
working at it before he comes. Stow them away. Have Andy show you how
to pulverize the acorns and make Indian bread of the flour. Gather
huckleberries--all you can--I saw a patch of them up the river from
where we crossed to-day. The berries will be ripe now. Then you’ll
find nuts in the cones of the piñon pines. Andy has a little fishing
tackle. There should be mountain trout in the river. If Indians could
subsist in this valley without drawing upon civilization for supplies,
trust Andy to do it. But the important point is that you must make him
teach you all that he knows about foraging in the wilderness before
he--before he becomes unable to help you. For that may happen.”
“You are not making yourself clear, Doctor,” Charmian told him. “Why
is all this necessary? Why can’t we all go out together? In other
words, if Andy can get here to me why can’t he make it out to Shirttail
Henry’s or Mosquito? And why can’t Mary Temple come here with Andy, if
she is able to go with you over the mountains?”
“Mary deceived you, with my knowledge,” confessed Shonto. “Her ankle
isn’t sprained. She has a broken rib. She could never crawl through
that chaparral. It would break her in two, almost. But she can walk
in an erect position, after a fashion, with me to help her. Anyway,
there’s nothing else to be done; we’ll have to try it. And Andy--”
“Why did Mary Temple tell me she had a sprained ankle when she had
broken her rib?” demanded Charmian.
“She wanted to force you and me into the wilderness together,”
explained Shonto, without a sign of contrition. “That’s what I believe
now. I know she doesn’t approve of Andy Jerome as a husband for you.
And she has hinted that she wants you to marry me. That’s frank enough,
isn’t it? But she told me that she was afraid of putting a stop to your
expedition if she confessed to a broken rib. She knew that she could
walk with her rib broken--see?--and thought that you would insist on
taking her back and spoiling the fun. But if she pleaded a sprained
ankle, you would imagine that she couldn’t walk one way or the other,
and it would be just as well to leave her there until she could walk
again, while you went on with your hunt for the valley. It worked out
to her satisfaction, as you see.”
“And now you think she deliberately planned to get you and me to
continue the trip together?”
“I’m afraid so,” smiled Shonto, “though I give my word it didn’t occur
to me at the time. I never gave a thought to the old trick of making
one person think he has had a square deal in drawing straws by the
use of two whole matches. You see, there was no short match for Andy
to draw. Both matches were whole. The one who drew the long straw was
elected to stay in the cañon. When Andy saw that he had drawn an entire
match, he didn’t think to ask to see the other one, but considered
himself defeated then and there.”
“I think it was abominable of Mary Temple!” the girl said sharply.
“Perhaps it was so,” admitted Shonto. “Nevertheless, the fact remains
that she was, and always is, working for what she thinks your best
interests. And it struck me as almost noble of her to feign a sprained
ankle in order to keep you on the quest. Sending me out with you
occurred to her later, I think. At the time she played only to keep
your expedition moving--and it called for a certain amount of sacrifice
for a crippled, middle-aged woman to remain in that deep cañon all
alone.”
Charmian made no further comment on Mary’s well-meant perfidy. She
thought deeply for a long time, and when she spoke she reverted to a
question that still remained unanswered:
“Why can’t Andy go out with the rest of us if he is able to get to the
Valley of Arcana?”
“It will require a great deal more time for us to get out with
the crippled Mary than it will for Andy to find you here,” Shonto
explained. “And he might-- It might happen that he would succumb on
the way. Andy Jerome, Charmian, is an experiment. I know that he can
hold out for three or four days, but how much longer I don’t know,
because I’ve never experimented with him to the extent of shutting off
his medicine to find out. Andy is my friend--his family have been my
friends for many years. So I really don’t know what would happen if we
were many days on the back trail or if a blizzard came on and left us
storm-bound in the mountains. But here in the Valley of Arcana, where
everything is smiling and there will be an abundance of food for some
time to come, he will be safe with you to care for him. I simply can’t
risk taking him out.”
“It’s the loss of his supply of tablets, of course,” murmured the
widow. “Why didn’t you leave him a sufficient supply?”
“He has as much as he ever carries when I am with him,” said the
doctor. “I usually carry the main stock when we are out in the
wilderness together. I have always thought it safer to keep the greater
part of it myself. I don’t go into so many difficult places as Andy
does. I don’t take the risks that he does. Then if something happened
to his supply, I’d still have enough for him. Perhaps it was foolish
for me to bring along any at all on the trip from the cañon, but I
have become so accustomed to keeping it in my medicine case that I
followed the usual procedure. I knew that Andy would not be content to
stay with Mary all the time. He’ll be scouring the hills and cañons
in search of things to interest him. And he always takes his tablets.
If he had all of them, he might lose them, as I did. You see, that’s
the way I reasoned. I’m Andy’s guardian--a poor one, I confess now.
And the difficulty is that I’m never free to talk over his malady with
him or others. To be a little more frank still, it is a secret, even
to Andy himself. This time I reasoned wrong--if I reasoned at all--and
simply didn’t do as I did from force of habit. And Andy must have more
medicine just as soon as I can get it to him, for I don’t know how long
he’ll last without it when his present supply is gone.
“So there’s the nut-shell truth of the situation. Mary can’t come here;
Andy doesn’t dare to try to make it out. You must stay here in the
valley and take care of Andy. I must get Mary out and hurry to a point
where I can send a wire for more tablets. There’s no other alternative.
I’ve thought it all out; looked at the matter from every angle.”
“But--but what shall I do?” she puzzled. “What can I do to help Andy?
What am I to expect?”
“You can do nothing,” replied the doctor. “I mean, I can’t give you
any instructions. Neither can Andy. When--if anything happens, you
will soon know what to do. I really can’t tell you any more, Charmian.
It wouldn’t be fair to him. For it may transpire that nothing at all
will happen--and that’s what I’m hoping for. I must trust to Fate, for
I myself am ignorant of what will be the result if Andy’s supply of
tablets runs out before I can get back with more. Neither do I know
how soon the result will begin to show. And, as I said, in fairness to
him I must not prepare you for anything simply because nothing at all
may happen. For more reasons than one I don’t want you to marry Andy
Jerome; but I’ll not be the one to tell you anything that might keep
you from doing so.”
“Why, Doctor!” she cried. “You’ve done nothing but bewilder me. I can’t
imagine what you’re talking about at all. It’s all riddles.”
“I realize that,” he confessed, “but I consider myself helpless to make
the thing clearer.”
“I don’t believe Andy has heart trouble at all!” she said half angrily.
“It’s something about the glands, I know. That accounts for your
repeated refusals to tell me much about your work. Isn’t that right?”
He nodded in agreement.
Another period of staring into the flames on her part; then she cried
passionately:
“Oh, I don’t want to stay here alone and wait for Andy! And I’m
afraid--afraid of what may happen to him! But if I must stay, it’s
cruel of you to leave me in ignorance of what to expect. And I can’t
even talk it over with Andy, it seems.”
“No, he knows less about it than you do,” Shonto told her. “His parents
and I have deceived him into thinking he has had heart trouble for
years. And no one but his parents and I know the truth.”
“Oh, that sounds terrible! You think I shouldn’t marry Andy, and yet--”
“If Andy remains all right,” he cut in quickly, “there is no positive
reason why you shouldn’t marry him. I think, however, that he is not
the man for you--and it’s fair enough for me to make that statement for
the simple reason that I’m convinced _I’m_ the man for you. I refuse
to call to your mind any of Andy’s faults. I have enough of my own.
If he has any, you must find them out for yourself. But I’ll make you
marry me instead of him because you will see that I’m the man to make
your life complete, and that you’re the woman to make mine complete.
You don’t love Andy. I know you don’t. You merely think you do. His
magnificent young manhood has carried you off your feet, and you’ve
not gone deeper into the matter. Blind, physical love you have given
him--but it will pass, Charmian. And that’s enough--positively all.
We’ll turn in and try to forget it all for to-night. And to-morrow
early I’m off to send Andy to you. I know you’ll care for him if--if he
needs it. But if you believe in God, pray to him that he won’t! Good
night. My bed is over there by the big oak. Call me if you need me for
anything.”