For the next two days Cavanagh slept but little, for his patient grew
steadily worse. As the flame of his fever mounted, Wetherford pleaded for
air. The ranger threw open the doors, admitting freely the cool, sweet
mountain wind. "He might as well die of a draught as smother," was his
thought; and by the use of cold cloths he tried to allay the itching and
the pain.
"What I am doing may be all wrong," he admitted to Swenson, who came often
to lean upon the hitching-pole and offer aid. "I have had no training as a
nurse, but I must be doing something. The man is burning up, and hasn't
much vitality to spare. I knew a ranger had to be all kinds of things,
cowboy, horse-doctor, axe-man, carpenter, surveyor, and all the rest of
it, but I didn't know that he had to be a trained nurse in addition."
"How do you feel yourself?" asked his subordinate, anxiously.
"Just tired; nothing more. I reckon I am going to escape. I should be
immune, but you never can tell. The effect of vaccination wears off after
a few years."
"The women folks over there are terribly worried, and the old lady has
made me promise to call her in if you show the slightest signs of coming
down."
"Tell her to rest easy. I am keeping mighty close watch over myself, and
another night will tell the story so far as the old man is concerned. I
wish I had a real doctor, but I don't expect any. It is a long hard climb
up here for one of those tenderfeet."
He returned to his charge, and Swenson walked slowly away, back to the
camp, oppressed with the sense of his utter helplessness.
Again and again during the day Lee Virginia went to the middle of the
bridge, which was the dead-line, and there stood to catch some sign, some
wave of the hand from her lover. Strange courtship! and yet hour by hour
the tie which bound these young souls together was strengthened. She
cooked for him in the intervals of her watch and sent small pencilled
notes to him, together with the fish and potatoes, but no scrap of paper
came back to her--so scrupulous was Cavanagh to spare her from the
faintest shadow of danger.
Swenson brought verbal messages, it was true, but they were by no means
tender, for Cavanagh knew better than to intrust any fragile vessel of
sentiment to this stalwart young woodsman. Now that Lee knew the
mysterious old man was dying, she longed for his release--for his release
would mean her lover's release. She did not stop to think that it would be
long, very long, before she could touch Cavanagh's hand or even speak with
him face to face. At times under Swenson's plain speaking she grew faint
with the horror of the struggle which was going on in that silent cabin.
This leprous plague, this offspring of crowded and dirty tenements and of
foul ship-steerages, seemed doubly unholy here in the clean sanity of the
hills. It was a profanation, a hideous curse. "If it should seize upon
Ross--" Words failed to express her horror, her hate of it. "Oh God, save
him!" she prayed a hundred times each day.
Twice in the night she rose from her bed to listen, to make sure that
Cavanagh was not calling for help. The last time she looked out, a white
veil of frost lay on the grass, and the faint light of morning was in the
east, and in the exquisite clarity of the air, in the serene hush of the
dawn, the pestilence appeared but as the ugly emanation of disordered
sleep. The door of the ranger's cabin stood open, but all was silent. "He
is snatching a half-hour's sleep," she decided.
If the guard had carried in his mind the faintest intention of permitting
Lize to go to Cavanagh's aid, that intention came to no issue, for with
the coming of the third night Wetherford was unconscious and
unrecognizable to any one who had known him in the days of "the free
range." Lithe daredevil in those days, expert with rope and gun, he was as
far from this scarred and swollen body as the soaring eagle is from the
carrion which he sees and scorns.
He was going as the Wild West was going, discredited, ulcerated, poisoned,
incapable of rebirth, yet carrying something fine to his grave. He had
acted the part of a brave man, that shall be said of him. He had gone to
the rescue of the poor Basque, instinctively, with the same reckless
disregard of consequences to himself which marked his character when as a
cow-boss on the range he had set aside the most difficult tasks for his
own rope or gun. His regard for the ranger into whose care he was now
about to commit his wife and daughter, persisted in spite of his
suffering. In him was his hope, his stay. Once again, in a lucid moment,
he reverted to the promise which he had drawn from Cavanagh.
"If I go, you must take care--of my girl--take care of Lize, too. Promise
me that. Do you promise?" he insisted.
"I promise--on honor," Ross repeated, and, with a faint pressure of his
hand (so slender and weak), Wetherford sank away into the drowse which
deepened hour by hour, broken now and then by convulsions, which wrung the
stern heart of the ranger till his hands trembled for pity.
All day, while the clouds sailed by, white as snow and dazzlingly pure,
while the stream roared with joy of exploration, and the sunshine fell in
dazzling floods upon the world, the ranger bent above his ward or walked
the floor of his cabin marvelling that the air and light of this high
place should be so powerless to check the march of that relentless plague.
It seemed that to open the doors, to fill the room with radiance, must
surely kill the mutinous motes which warred upon the tortured body. But in
the midst of nature's sovereign charm the reek of the conflict went up;
and he wondered whether even the vigor which his outdoor life had built up
could withstand the strain another day.
Once Lee Virginia approached close enough to hear his voice as he warned
her to go back. "You can do nothing," he called to her. "Please go away."
His face was haggard with weariness, and her heart filled with bitter
resentment to think that this repulsive warfare, this painful duty, should
be thrust upon one so fine.
He himself felt as though his youth were vanishing, and that in these few
days he had entered upon the sober, care-filled years of middle life. The
one sustaining thought, his one allurement, lay in the near presence of
the girl to whom he could call, but could not utter one tender word. She
was there where he could see her watching, waiting at the bridge. "The
sound of the water helps me bear the suspense," she said to Swenson, and
the occasional sight of her lover, the knowledge that he was still
unbroken, kept her from despair.
The day was well advanced when the sound of rattling pebbles on the hill
back of his cabin drew his attention, and a few moments later a man on a
weary horse rode up to his door and dropped heavily from the saddle. He
was a small, dark individual, with spectacles, plainly of the city.
"Beware! Smallpox!" called Ross, as his visitor drew near the door.
The new-comer waved his hand contemptuously. "I've had it. Are you Ross
Cavanagh?"
"I am!"
"My name is Hartley. I represent the Denver _Round-up_. I'm interested in
this sheep-herder killing--merely as a reporter," he added, with a
fleeting smile. "Did you know old man Dunn, of Deer Creek, had committed
suicide?"