For Thayor to welcome Sperry with a warm grasp of the hand and an
outburst of--"Oh! I'm glad you are here; it seems like a special
Providence," was so strange and unusual a performance that it is no
wonder Alice, moving toward the buckboard to add her own greeting to
her husband's, was lost in astonishment even when the cause of the
outburst became clear to her.
Her husband's mental attitude toward the doctor, if the truth be told,
was one of the things that had never ceased to trouble her. Polite as
he was to everybody, he had been so particularly polite to Sperry that
it always aroused her suspicions. She knew he had sent for him purely
to oblige her and to help her over the chasm which divided Big Shanty
from Newport, but what other reasons her husband had for inviting him
to share his hospitality at the camp, she was not so familiar with. It
therefore came as a distinct surprise when she heard him repeat with
increased warmth in his manner:
"Yes, a special Providence, my dear Dr. Sperry"--nor did the real
cause of the doctor's welcome set her mind at rest.
"This way, doctor," continued Thayor, dragging Sperry with him.
"Blakeman will bring your bag. One of our men is badly hurt; I was
on my way to him when I heard you driving up. He's only a few rods
away--hurry!"
The little man lay on his back on the floor of the lower shanty where
the men had carried him. The chain cinching down a heavy sapling
binding a load of shingles had snapped, and the wiry little
Frenchman--Gaston Le Boeuf--who was standing on top of the load, had
been shot into the air and landed in a ditch with his right
forearm splintered in two. The pain was intense, both bones of the
forearm--the ulnar and radius--being shattered transversely, the ulnar
poking through the flesh in an ugly blue wound.
When Thayor and the doctor reached him, the Clown was holding the
broken arm taut--he had to keep up a steady pull, for with the
slightest release the knotty sinews and muscles would cause the broken
forearm to fly back at right angles. Although this had happened a
dozen times while they were bringing him in, the wiry little man did
not utter a groan. He lay there white, in a cold sweat, the corners of
his black eyes crinkling over his bad luck. He had known what pain was
before. Once on Bog River his skinning knife had slipped while he was
dressing out a deer, and the keen blade had gone through his knotty
calf, severing the nerve; yet he had walked nearly a dozen miles back
to Morrison's.
As Sperry entered, the circle of lumber jacks about the wounded man
widened, then closed again about him, watching the doctor who soon had
the broken arm in an improvised splint.
The man from the city rarely gets very close to a backwoods people
unless he possesses sincerity, democracy, and an inborn love of the
woods--three virtues without which a man may remain always a stranger
in the wilderness.
The New York doctor possessed none of these qualities; moreover, he
was pitifully unadaptable outside of the artificial world in which
he posed. So much so that at first sight of the trapper and the
Clown--two men whom Thayor had pointed out to him as being his most
reliable assistants next to Holcomb--his only thought had been how Sam
Thayor could have such eccentric boors on the place. He noticed, too,
with irritation and astonishment, that none of the men raised their
hats until Alice and Margaret arrived on the scene; then not a man
among them remained covered.
What he did not notice, however, was the way the men around him were,
to use the Clown's expression, "sizin' him up," as they did all city
men and this before he had been ten minutes among them, with the
result that the trapper had concluded that he looked like a man who
was afraid of spoiling his clothes; that Holcomb and the Clown thought
him sadly lacking in Sam Thayor's frank simplicity; while the others
stood about waiting for some word or gesture on which to hang their
opinions.
But all this was changed now. With his ready skill Sperry had become,
by the turn of his hand, so to speak, the Medicine Man of the tribe.
They were even ready to let down their social barriers and extend to
him all their friendship--a friendship he could have relied on for the
rest of his days.
"Dunno as I ever see a neater job," remarked a big fellow--a former
doubter--peering over the shoulders of the crowd, intent on the
doctor's handling of the wounded arm.
"Yes--yes--" drawled the Clown. "Goll! seems 'ough he knowed jest whar
to take hold."
"There," said Sperry, as he gave a final adjustment to the improvised
bandage. "You had better get him to bed."
"By gar, Doc'," grunted the little man between his teeth, "what you
goin' to do now, hein! I feel lot bettaire I tink eff I tak a drink."
He had not even asked for a drop of water before, nor had he spoken a
word.
"He may have it," said Sperry, in the voice he used at consultations.
The Clown poured a tin cup full of whiskey and the little man drained
it to the last drop.
"He'll suffer," said Sperry, turning to the trapper, "when the arm
begins to swell under the bandage."
"Broke bad, Doc'?" asked the trapper.
"Yes, a compound fracture; but he'll be all right, my man, in a few
weeks." Sperry opened a thin leather case, which he took from his bag,
extracted a phial, and shook two whitish gray pills into the trapper's
palm. "Give him one in an hour, and another to-night if he can't
sleep," he said. He went over to the patient, felt his pulse, then
with a nod to the rest, he started toward the door.
"Hold on, Doc'!" came from half a dozen in the group of lumber jacks;
"won't ye take a leetle somethin' 'fore ye go?"
Sperry shook his head and smiled. "No, thank you," he said, half
amused. "I seldom take anything before luncheon."
"But, say--we'd like to fix it with ye--what's the damage, Doc'?" and
half a dozen rough hands went into their trousers pockets. But Sperry
only waved his hand in an embarrassed way in protest, and added:
"Of course not--what I have done for one of you men, I would do for
anybody. I shall see him in the morning"--and he strode out of the
shanty.
By this time the little Frenchman's eyes were closed, and he was
breathing heavily--he was dead drunk.
"Goll! warn't that an awful hooker ye give him, Freme?" asked
the trapper. He turned to the sufferer, now that the doctor had
disappeared, and drew an extra blanket tenderly over him.
"Wall, he ain't no home'path," replied the Clown with a grin; "'sides,
I presume likely he needed all he could git down him."
* * * * *
The days that followed were full of joy to Alice. Never had Thayor
seen her in so merry a mood. Le Boeuf's broken arm had somehow
changed Thayor's attitude toward his guest--so much so that the
man's personality no longer jarred on him. He concluded that whatever
suspicions he had had--and they were never definite--were groundless.
Alice was simply bored in New York and Sperry amused her. That was the
secret of his success with his women patients; she was bored here, and
again Sperry amused her! Why not, then, give her all the pleasure
she wanted? With this result fixed in his mind, his attitude to the
"Exquisite" changed. He even sought out ways in which his guest's stay
could be made happy.
"You must see the trout pond, doctor," he would say. "Ah! you don't
believe we've got one--but we have; you must show it to the doctor, my
dear"--at which her eyes would seek her friend's, only to be met with
an answering look and the words:
"Delighted, my dear Mrs. Thayor," as he dropped a second lump of sugar
in his cup. Whereupon the two would disappear for the day, it being
nearly dusk before they returned again to camp; Alice bounding into
the living room radiant from her walk, her arms full of wild flowers.
There came a day, however, when Sperry, with one of his sudden
resolves, preferred the daughter's company to the wife's. What had
influenced his decision he must have confided to Alice--that is, his
version of it--for when he asked Margaret to come for a walk, and had
received the girl's answer, "I'm afraid we haven't time for a walk
before luncheon," Alice had replied: "Of course you have. The walk
will do you good."
What really determined him to seek Margaret's companionship was a
desire to fathom her heart. She was her father's confidante, and as
such might be dangerous, or useful. To have refused him Margaret knew
would only have made matters worse. Much as she disliked him, she was
grateful to him for having set the little Frenchman's arm; so she ran
into the house and returned in a moment, her fresh young face shaded
by a brim of straw covered with moss roses.
"What a pretty hat!" exclaimed Sperry, as they crossed the compound
to the trail leading down to the brook. "Oh, you young New York girls
know just what is and what is not becoming."
"Do you think so?" returned Margaret vaguely, not knowing just what
answer to make. "It was my own idea."
Sperry looked at the young girl, fresh and trim in her youth, and a
memory rushed over him of his Paris days. Margaret reminded him of
Lucille, he thought to himself, all except the eyes--Lucille's eyes
were black.
"Yes, it's adorable," he replied, drinking in the fresh beauty of the
young girl. "You are very pretty, my dear--just like your mother."
This line of attack had always succeeded in sounding the hearts of the
young girls he had known.
The girl blushed--the freedom of his tone troubled, and then half
frightened her. So much so that she walked on in silence, wishing she
had not come. Then again it was the first time she had been entirely
alone with him, and the feeling was not altogether a pleasant one.
There was, too, a certain familiarity in his voice and manner which
she would have resented in a younger man but which, somehow, she had
to submit to.
She stopped abruptly as they came to a steep rock.
"Please go on ahead," she said with an appealing look in her brown
eyes, as he put out his hand to help her down. "I can get down very
well myself."
"Come, be sensible, little girl," he returned; "we must not have
another accident to-day. Pretty ankles are as hard to mend as broken
arms."
Again the colour mounted to her cheeks; no one had ever spoken to her
in this way before.
"Please don't," she returned, her voice trembling.
"Don't _what_, may I ask?" he laughed.
"Please don't call me 'little girl'; I--I don't like it," she
returned, not knowing what else to say and still uneasy--outraged,
really, if she had understood her feelings. She sat down quickly,
and as he turned to look at the torrent below, slid down the rock
in safety. Sperry's brow knit. What surprised him was to find her
different from the girls he had known. Then he said in an absent way:
"What splendid rapids!"
"It's the most beautiful old stream in the world," replied Margaret,
glad he had found another topic besides herself.
"But be careful," he cautioned her a few rods farther on; "it's
slippery here. Come, give me your arm."
Again she evaded him.
"I'm not an invalid," she laughed--she was farther from him now and
her courage had accordingly increased.
"Of course you're not--whoever said you were. Invalids do not have
cheeks like roses, my little girl, and yours are wonderful to-day."
The girl turned away her head in silence, and the two picked their
steps the remainder of the way down to the brook without speaking.
There she made a spring and landed on a flat rock about the edge of
which swirled the green water of a broad pool. Sperry, undaunted,
seated himself beside her.
"Margaret," he began, "why don't you like me? I seem to have offended
you. Tell me, what have I said? I wouldn't offend you for the world,
and you know it. Why don't you like me?" he repeated.
"Why, doctor!" she exclaimed with a forced little laugh that trembled
in her fresh, young throat, "what a funny question!"
"I am quite serious," he added, with a sudden vibrant tone in his
voice. Impulsively his hand closed over hers; she felt for a second
the warm pressure of his fingers, the next instant she started to her
feet.
"Don't!" she cried indignantly, flushing to the roots of her fair
hair, her wide-open eyes staring at him. "You mustn't do that; I don't
like it!" Her lips were trembling now, her eyes full of tears. Then
she added helplessly "We had better be going--we shall be late for
luncheon."
He was standing beside her now. "Then tell me you like me," he
insisted. "Besides, we have loads of time. Why, it's only twenty
minutes to one," he said, looking hurriedly at his watch, careful to
conceal the tell-tale hands of its dial from her frightened glance.
Without answering the girl turned and began to retrace her steps.
"But you haven't said you like me," he called out, hurrying to her
side.
Margaret did not speak; she only knew that her head was throbbing,
that she heard but indistinctly the words of the man who kept close to
her as they went on up the steep trail. At the rock where she had been
too quick for him, Sperry abruptly stepped in front of her, barring
her way.
"Come now," he said; "be sensible. You must not go in to luncheon
looking as you do." He put forth both hands to assist her up the rock;
she offered her own mechanically, in a helpless sort of way, knowing
it would be impossible to ascend otherwise while he was there. A
quick, steady pull, and she was abreast of him, the brim of her
gay little hat touching for a second his waistcoat. The moment was
irresistible--in that second he was conscious of the fragrance and
warmth of her girlhood. He felt her soft brown hands in his own,
straining to release themselves.
"Don't!" she faltered; "please--I beg of you--"
A voice behind him brought him to his senses:
"Beg pardon, miss, but luncheon is served."
It was Blakeman. The butler stood respectfully aside to let them pass.
Slowly he followed the retreating form of the doctor and Margaret,
his hands clenched. For some seconds he stood immovable, then he broke
hastily into the woods, cross-cutting back to his pantry.
"Damn him!" he muttered, as he squeezed the cork from a bottle of
Pomard. "I hadn't a second to lose!"
At luncheon Blakeman served the Burgundy without a trace upon his
round, smug face of the indignation surging within him. His skilled
hand replenished Sperry's glass generously.
The doctor grew talkative; he told his complete set of luncheon
stories with enthusiasm, while Margaret sat in grateful silence; she
was in no mood to talk herself; the incident of the morning had left
her depressed and nervous.
"She's pulling out of it," he said to Alice when the girl had left the
room. "Colour good and walks without losing her breath. I think now
you can dismiss all anxiety from your mind. The woods have saved her
life." What he said to himself was: "I made a mess of this morning's
work; she's not such a fool as I thought."
The end of the week, and Sperry's last (for Thayor, despite all of
Alice's numerous hints, had not asked that his visit be prolonged),
brought Alice's paradise to a close. So far their days together had
seemed like a dream--his departure the next morning would mean the
renewal of an ennui which would continue until she reached the month
of freedom which her husband had promised her.
If Thayor had noticed his wife's anxiety he made no sign. He had
gratified her wishes and she had been happy; further than that he did
not care to go.
As to Alice, that which occupied her waking thoughts was how to
prolong the situation without letting the doctor feel her need of him.
Then again there was her husband. Would he agree to a continuance of
Sperry's visit if she proposed it outright? She had lately noticed
a certain reserved manner in Thayor whenever he found them
together--nothing positive--but something unusual in one so
universally courteous to everybody about him, especially a guest.
Would this develop into antagonism if he read her thoughts?
That same day Sperry went twice to the lower shanty to see Le Boeuf.
His increasing his usual morning visit to glance at the slowly mending
fracture was sufficient to make Thayor inquire anxiously about the
little Frenchman's condition.
"Is poor Le Boeuf worse?" he asked the doctor as they sat over their
cigars in the den after dinner.
Sperry rose, bent over the lamp chimney and kindled the end of a fresh
Havana.
"I am afraid," he said, resuming his seat, "that the poor fellow's
arm is in a rather discouraging condition. I shall see him again
to-night."
Thayor frowned--the old worried look came again into his eyes.
Suffering of any kind always affected him--suffering for which in a
measure he was responsible was one of the things he could not bear.
"You don't say so!" he exclaimed; "that _is_ bad news. I'm very, very
sorry. You know my men are my children; there is not one of them
who would not stand by me if I was ill or in danger. And you really
consider Le Boeufs condition alarming?"
Sperry shrugged his shoulders. "A fracture like that sometimes gives
us serious trouble," he replied in his best professional manner.
"Frankly, I do not like the looks of things at all."
"And he needs a doctor," Thayor said, suddenly looking up. "You will,
of course, stay until he is out of danger?"
"No, I must return to New York," Sperry protested. "I feel I have
already imposed on you and your good wife's hospitality; besides,
there are my patients waiting. It is neither right nor fair to my
assistant, Bainbridge. His last letter was rather savage," laughed
Sperry.
"But can Le Boeuf be moved?"
"Well--er--no. Frankly, I would not take the risk."
"Then you consider his condition alarming?"
"Alarming enough to know that unless things take a sudden turn for the
better, blood-poisoning will set in. We shall then have to amputate.
These cases sometimes prove fatal."
"Then I will not hear of your going," Thayor said in a decisive
tone--"at least not until Le Boeuf is out of danger. You have set his
arm and are thoroughly in touch with the case. You must stay here and
pull him through."
Sperry raised his arms in hopeless protest.
"Really, my dear Mr. Thayor, it is impossible," he said.
"No--nothing is impossible where a man's life is at stake," Thayor
continued, lapsing into his old business-like manner. "As to your
practice, you know me well enough to know I would not for a moment put
you to any personal loss."
"But my dear Thayor--"
"I won't listen to you, Dr. Sperry. It is a matter of the life or
death of one of my men--a man who, Holcomb tells me, has been most
faithful in his work. I will not hear of your going, and that ends
it!"
Sperry rose, and for some moments regarded intently the blue spiral of
smoke from his cigar curl lazily past his nose; then with a smile of
ill-concealed triumph and a slight shrug of acquiescence, he replied:
"Of course, if you insist; yes, I'll stay. I shall do my best to save
him."
"Thank you," cried Thayor. "Now we will join Alice and Margaret. He
held back the heavy portiere screening the door of the living room.
"Not a word to Margaret, remember," Thayor whispered, "about Le Boeuf,
nor to Mrs. Thayor--she doesn't like these things and I try to keep
them from her all I can."
"Certainly not," returned the doctor. "It would only worry her.
Besides, I think I have a fighting chance to save him."
As they entered the living room Alice raised her eyes. Margaret put
down a treatise on forestry that Holcomb had lent her, rose, and said
good-night. She did not relish the thought of general conversation
when the doctor was present--especially after the experiences she had
had.
"Ah, Alice," said Thayor, as he crossed the room to where his wife was
sitting, "I have a bit of news for you, my dear. Our friend here has
positively refused to leave. Oh--it's the air," he added as the
doctor laughed, "and the charm of old nature. You know, doctor, it's
contagious, this enchantment of the woods." Alice gave an involuntary
start and the little ball of blue worsted in her lap dropped to the
floor, and unravelled itself to the edge of the Persian rug.
"Not really!" she exclaimed, smothering her secret joy. "You see what
a useless person I am at persuasion, doctor. Come, be truthful--didn't
I try to persuade you to stay?"
"Yes, my dear lady, to be truthful you did; but I had no intention of
wearing my welcome into shreds."
The sense of an exquisite relief thrilled every nerve in Alice's body.
Sperry saw her breast heave a little, then their eyes met.
Thayor touched the bell for whiskey and soda. As the doctor drained
his second glass he snapped out his watch.
"I must look in on Le Boeuf," he said briskly.
Again Thayor touched the bell. "Blakeman will accompany you with a
lantern, doctor."
Sperry turned and bid Alice a formal good-night. "Don't wait up for
me; I may not be in until late--my overcoat, Blakeman"--and the two
passed out into the night.