One of the fairest paintings of Nature was at that point among the
mountains of the Canadian province of Cariboo where the Campbell River
takes the Boardman to its bosom and swings south on its pilgrimage to
the Pacific. Like all of Nature's more dramatic compositions, by
reason of its very effectiveness, it was predestined to be smudged by a
town, and the collection of shacks and tents known as Fort Edward was
already begun. It was conceded that Fort Edward was bound to be a
great city when the new transcontinental passed through. To be sure,
railhead was still beyond the mountains, a matter of two or three
years' construction, but the noise of the town's greatness-to-be had
been industriously drummed up by real-estate operators outside, and
many optimists had struggled up the three hundred miles of the Campbell
Valley from the existing railway to be on hand in plenty of time.
On a day in June of the year when the "rush" began, the settlement
looked sodden and raw after much rain. The two prevailing styles of
dwellings were wet "A" tents with projecting, rusty stovepipes and new
pine shacks of a crass yellow, having roofs of tar paper studded with
tin-headed tacks as big as half dollars. A single two-story building
loomed up in the middle like a packing-case among soap-boxes. This was
the Fort Edward Hotel, better known as Maroney's. The other
habitations reached out on either hand in an irregular double row.
The space within the double row was going to be "the main artery of
traffic" some day, but where the optimists (and the real-estate
operators) fondly foresaw automobiles and trolley cars rolling up and
down, at present there was nothing but a parade of jagged stumps among
which muddy paths threaded their devious ways. Below the hotel a tiny
stern-wheeler of quaint, lubberly design lay with her nose tucked in
the mud of the river bank. At eleven in the morning there were few
humans in sight, because the black flies were in murderous fettle, and
anyway, the principal industry of the place was--waiting for the
railway.
One had only to raise one's eyes to receive a quite different
impression of the scene. Where man's work looked sodden, Nature's was
deliciously refreshed. The world wore that honest look it shows after
rain before the sun comes out, that calm openness under the pure light
that casts no shadows. The pine-clad mountains loomed near and clean
and dark. The cloud wrack pressed down close upon their heads, giving
the valley the confined and intimate look of a room. There were
already rents in the ceiling, revealing a tender blue back-cloth. The
air was as sweet in the nostrils as spring water in a parched throat.
Farthest from the hotel on the Campbell River side was a shack more of
the dimensions of a chicken house than a residence for humans. Beside
the door was nailed a little sign obviously painted by an
unprofessional hand, reading, "Ralph Cowdray, M.D." Within, in the
first of the two closets the shack comprised, sat the doctor and his
friend Dan Reach, the telegraph operator, the first with his heels
cocked on the packing-case that served him for a desk, the other with
his lower extremities supported by the window-sill. From each ascended
a column of smoke. The only other furniture of the room was a little
stand of pine shelves in the corner bearing the doctor's slender
library and pharmaceutical stock, books and bottles as new as the
doctor's office and the doctor himself.
The two men mustered forty-nine years between them, with the odd year
on the telegrapher's side. The doctor was a youth of middle height
with a strong, well-knit frame, and a comely head broadest over the
ears, with a luxuriant thatch of dark brown. His face was strongly
moulded, almost too heavy in its lines for his years, but oddly
redeemed by a pair of dreamy brown eyes. There was an interesting
contradiction here: nose, mouth, chin, suggested a commendable
hardihood, an honest obstinacy, while the eyes seemed to see through
and beyond what they were turned on. Like all resolute young men,
Ralph regarded the softer side of his character as a weakness and hid
it close. Like other young men again, he paid his way through the
world with the small change of a facetious manner, which reduces them
all to a common, comfortable level.
Ralph and Dan killed time with endless, jocular quarrelling. Their
dependence on each other's society in this dull little settlement had
brought about an unusual degree of intimacy in a few weeks. In other
words, they were almost honest with each other. At present Ralph's
facetious manner only half concealed a very real grievance against life.
"Romance is extinct, like the dodo," he announced.
Dan was a tall, lean young man, inclining to the saturnine type. "That
requires examination," he said judicially. "First, define Romance."
"Romance," said Ralph, throwing back his head and puffing a tall column
of smoke toward the ceiling--the dreaminess of his eyes had full sway
at that moment--"Romance is every man's unrealized desire."
"You contradict yourself," said Dan with provoking exactness. "How can
a thing be dead which was never realized?"
The question was awkward, so Ralph serenely ignored it. "Ever since I
went into long trousers I've been looking for it," he went on lightly.
"Nothing doing!"
"Maybe that's the trouble," suggested Dan; "maybe Romance begins at
home."
"Did you ever find it?" challenged Ralph.
"Never looked," returned Dan calmly.
"Oh, you've no imagination!"
Dan chuckled. "According to that, Romance is only imaginary, then.
Got you again, Doc!"
Naturally these discussions never arrived anywhere. When one was
stumped for an answer he hit out on a new line. The thing was to keep
the ball in play by any device until the next meal created a diversion.
"I thought college would be romantic," Ralph went on. "I had fun of
course, bully fun, but just the ordinary college fun. There were
girls, plenty of 'em, dear little things! transparent as window-glass.
Gad! a man longs to meet a woman who can fascinate him, and stir him to
the bottom, and keep him guessing!"
"Well, let me see what we've got in Fort Edward," said Dan. "To begin
with, there's Biddy Maroney----"
"Cut it out!" cried Ralph. "Fatal to thoughts of Romance! After
college there was the medical school and the hospitals," he went on.
"They knocked the spots out of Romance. Say, a city doctor loses faith
in his fellowmen. I decided I'd hang out my shingle in the woods, and
I came up here because it was the beyondest place I could hear of."
"Thinking you'd surely find Romance somewhere back of beyond,"
suggested Dan.
"Sure! The noble red man, you understand; the glittering-eyed
prospector lusting for gold; the sturdy pioneer hewing a home for his
brood in the wilderness--and all that! Well, here I am, and what is
it?--a village of poor suckers done up brown, like myself, by the
real-estate sharks outside!"
"Striking metaphor!" murmured Dan.
"Everybody sitting on their tails expecting to be rich any day by the
grace of God!" Ralph went on. "And Indians! swillers of beer-dregs!
Town scavengers! Moreover, it's the healthiest place on earth, I
believe. I never get a case but a scalp wound or two after a big night
at Maroney's. As for Romance, she's as far away as ever! And I'm
getting on!"
"True," said Dan, with a serious wag of the head, "you've no time to
lose!"
As a matter of fact, Ralph's youthfulness was a sore subject with him,
as it is with all young doctors.
He let the dig pass unnoticed. "I've almost given up hope," he said.
There was a knock at the door.
"Here she is now," said Dan dryly.
"Come in," said Ralph indifferently.
It was a woman, but only an Indian woman dressed in a ridiculous
travesty of white women's clothes. The two young men lowered their
feet, and exchanged a humorous glance. After an idle look, Ralph's
regard returned to his pipe. To tell the truth, he had found the
Indians around Fort Edward as patients neither profitable nor grateful,
and he could not be expected to welcome a new one with any enthusiasm.
Dan was the more impressed; he studied the girl with a kind of wonder,
and from her looked curiously at his friend.
"I want to see the doctor," she said, in a soft and agreeable voice.
"What can I do for you?" asked Ralph, off-hand.
She did not answer immediately, and he looked at her again. Her eyes
were bent on Dan, unmistakably conveying a polite hint. Dan saw it and
rose.
"See you at Maroney's at dinner," he said, passing out with a backward
glance at his friend; teasing, a little wondering still, and frankly
envious.
"Well?" said Ralph, looking his caller over with a professional eye.
She seemed healthy. For an Indian she was very good-looking, but this
fact reached him only by degrees. Her clothes were deplorable: a flat
red hat with a pert frill balanced crazily on her glossy hair; a
curiously tortured blue satin waist; a full woollen skirt hanging on
her like an ill-made bag, and cheap, new, misshapen shoes. The effect
was as if some wag had draped a classic statue in a low comedy make-up.
Naturally Ralph received his first impression from the make-up.
In answer to his measuring glance she said: "I not sick. I come to get
you for my mot'er."
Ralph reached for his hat.
"Wait a minute," she said. "We must talk before."
"Sit down," said Ralph.
She shook her head. "I stand," she said coolly.
There was a pause while she studied him with grave, troubled eyes.
"You ver' yo'ng to be a doctor," she remarked at length.
Ralph frowned in an elderly way, and bit his lip.
"Are you a good doctor?" she asked.