A GREAT GASH
“Confound you--pay some attention to me, will you? Do you _get_ what
I’m saying? Everything’s in train. I’ve only to take my physical
examination--papers came this morning, by the way--and get my
passports, and I’m off. For the love of heaven, what’s the matter with
you, Max Buller? Sitting there looking like a mollusc--like a barnacle
glued to a rock--and me having transports all over the place! Don’t you
know a magnificently happy man when you see one--and can’t you----”
Red’s manner suddenly changed, as Dr. Maxwell Buller looked up at him
with an expression of mingled pain and protest. Red’s voice softened,
his smiling lips grew sober.
“I beg your pardon, Max, old man,” he said. “You’re in trouble, and I’m
a blind ass--as usual. What’s the matter? The Throckmorton case gone
wrong, after all? Or worse things befallen? Come--out with it!”
Buller got up. He was Burns’ best friend in the profession--the two had
stood together since the earliest days of medical school and hospital
training. Buller was not a brilliant member of the healing fraternity,
but a steady-going, conscientious, doggedly energetic practitioner on
whose sturdy friendship through all the thick and thin of the regular
grind Burns was accustomed to rely. Never a crisis in the professional
affairs of either man but he called with confidence upon the bed-rock
reliability of the other to see him through.
On this particular morning, Red, bursting with the latest developments
in the arrangements he was pushing through in order to be able to
get away and join Dr. John Leaver at an American hospital in France,
had rushed into Buller’s office considerably before office hours.
He had shouted his plans into the other’s ears--so to speak--though
technically he had not much raised his voice above its customary low
professional pitch. The whole effect of him, none the less, had been
that of a boy roaring at a comrade across several fences that he had
been given a holiday and was off for glorious sport. And here was his
trusty comrade-in-arms glowering gloomily back at him and as good as
saying that he grudged him his luck and hoped he’d have the worst
possible time of it. That wasn’t a bit like Buller--good old Buller,
who hadn’t a selfish hair on his head, and knew no such thing as
professional jealousy where R. P. Burns was concerned. What in the name
of time was the matter with him?
“I’d no idea,” said Buller, at last, and hesitating strangely, “the
thing had gone so far. I knew you thought of going, but----”
“But what? Haven’t I been talking going for the last year and a half?
And didn’t I call you up the other day when I got Jack Leaver’s cable
and tell you I meant to put it through post-haste? Didn’t I----”
“Yes, you’ve told me all about it. You’ll remember that I’ve said a
good deal about the need for you right here, and my hope that you’d
delay going a while yet. I think I said----”
“I don’t know what _you_ said,” Red broke in impatiently, interrupting
Buller’s slower speech in a way to which the other was well used.
“I was much too busy talking myself to notice what any idiot might
be saying on lines like those. Good Lord! man, you _knew_ I’d go the
minute I got the chance. Why, I’m needed over there about sixteen
thousand times more than I am here----”
Buller shook his head, his unhappy eyes on the worn rug of his office
floor. The shake of that head inflamed Red into wild speech, his fist
clenched and brought down on Buller’s desk till bottles jumped and
papers flew off into space. Then, suddenly, he brought himself up short.
“All right,” he growled. “I’ve blown off. Now--explain yourself, if you
can--which I doubt. But I can at least give you the chance.”
Buller cleared his throat. He ran his hand through the rapidly graying
locks above his anxious brow, sat down at his desk again--as though it
might be a little easier to say what he had to say in this customary
seat of the judge delivering sentence--and looked unwillingly up at his
friend. Red had moved up and closed in on him as he sat down, towering
over the desk like a defiant prisoner.
“Get it over,” he commanded briefly.
“I’ll try to, Red, but--it’s hard to know how to begin.... You--suppose
you let me go over you, will you?--as a sort of preliminary to the
examination the Government surgeons will give you.”
“What for? Do you think I can’t pass? Is _that_ what’s bothering you?”
A relieved laugh came with the words. “Me?” He smote his broad chest
with all the confidence in the world--and Buller winced at the gesture.
“Why, I’m strong as an ox.”
Buller opened a drawer and took out a stethoscope. “Well--you won’t
mind----” he said, apologetically, and came around the desk as a man
might who had to put a pistol to the head of a beloved dog, and was
dreading the sound of the shot.
“All right. But it’s about the foolest thing I ever knew you to put up
to me.” Red pulled off his coat, stripped rapidly to the waist, and
presented himself for the inquisition.
Two minutes of absolute silence succeeded during which Buller swallowed
twice as if he were trying to get rid of his own palate. Then he stood
up with his hand on Red’s shoulder.
“I’m--awfully sorry, lad,” he said--and looked it, in a fashion the
other could not doubt.
“What do you mean?”
“Do you--remember that little trouble you had two years ago?”
“The--infection?”
“Yes. It’s left its mark.”
“What do you _mean_!”
“You’re all right for good solid hard work--here. But you aren’t
quite in condition to meet the--requirements of the Service. You--you
couldn’t get by, Red.”
Buller turned away, his chunky, square-fingered hand slightly unsteady
as he put away the little tell-tale apparatus which had registered the
hardest fact with which he had ever had to confront a patient--and
a friend. There was a full minute’s silence behind him, while he
deliberately kept his back turned, unwilling to witness the first
coming to grips with the totally unsuspected revelation. Then:
“Do you mean to say my heart isn’t all right?” came in a queer,
indignant tone which Buller knew meant only one thing: that Red minded
nothing at all about his physical condition except as it was bound to
affect the course upon which he had set out.
“Not--exactly.”
“Oh, quit treating me like a scared patient. I know you _think_ you
heard----”
“I did hear it, Red. There’s no possible doubt. It’s unquestionably the
result of the infection of two years ago. We all knew it then. I knew
I’d find it now. That’s why----”
“I see. That’s why you’ve been advising me not to go. My place was
here--_knitting_!”
Buller was silent. His broad, kind face worked a little as the big
figure crossed the room to the window. He could look up now--Red’s back
was toward him.
“Doesn’t the amount of work I stand up under, every earthly day and
night, show that in spite of your blamed old dissection I could do
a good job over there before I cash in--which, of course, may be
indefinitely postponed? Nobody knows better than you that a fellow can
go on working like a fiend for years with the rottenest sort of heart,
and never even suspect himself that there’s a thing wrong----”
“I know.” Buller’s voice was gentle as a woman’s. “But--first you’ve
got to pass the stiffest sort of Government tests, Red--and----”
“_And I can’t, eh?_”
It was done--Max Buller’s job. He didn’t have to answer that last
question--which was no question, as he well knew. There was finality
in Red’s own voice; he had accepted the fact. He knew too well the
uselessness of doubting Buller’s judgment--the other man was too well
qualified professionally for that. Red knew, also, as well as if he
had been told in plain language, precisely what his own condition must
be. Out of the race he was--that was all there was to it. Still fit to
carry heavy burdens, capable of sustaining the old routine under the
old terms, but unfit to take his place among the new runners on the
new track, where the prize was to be greater than any he had ever won.
And his splendid body, at that very minute, seemingly as perfect as it
had ever been; every function, as far as he himself could be aware, in
the smoothest running order! He could not even be more than usually
conscious of the beat of his own heart, so apparently undisturbed it
was by this intolerable news; while his spirit, his unquenched spirit,
was giving him the hardest tussle of his life.
Buller was wrong--he _must_ be wrong! He was “hearing things” that
didn’t exist. Red wheeled about, the inconsistent accusation on his
lips. It died at sight of his friend. Buller was slouched down in his
swivel-chair, his chin on his breast, his head propped on his hand.
Quite clearly Buller was taking this thing as hard--vicariously--as Red
himself--as Buller usually took things that affected Red adversely. Oh,
yes--the old boy knew--he couldn’t be fooled on a diagnosis like that.
Red turned back to the window. It was all over--there was no possible
appeal....
He went away almost immediately, and quite silently. There had been no
torrent of speech since the blow actually went home. The red-headed
surgeon with Celtic blood in his veins could be quiet enough when there
was no use saying anything, as there certainly wasn’t now.
* * * * *
Two days later Robert Black, hurrying down the street, traveling
bag in hand, passed the office of Redfield Pepper Burns just as the
doctor’s car drew up at the curb. Black turned, halted, and came up to
the car. Red was sitting still in it, waiting for him, the unstopped
motor throbbing quietly. Black hadn’t seen him for several days, but
the last he knew Red had been deep in his preparation for an early
departure. It was on Black’s lips to say, “How’s everything coming
on?”--knowing that no other subject had any interest for Red compared
with that. But Red spoke first.
“You’ve got to know sooner or later,” he said, in his gruffest tone,
“so you might as well know now. I’m not going over. That’s all. Can’t
stop to talk about it.” And he set hand to gear-shift, and with a nod
was off again, leaving Black standing looking after him, feeling as if
something had hit him between the eyes.
As he walked on, after a moment, his mind was busy with the impressions
it had received in that brief encounter. Red’s face had been set and
stern; it was often that when he was worn with work over more than
usually hard cases. His eyes had looked straight at Black with his
customary unevasive gaze, but--there had been something strange in that
look. He was unhappy--desperately unhappy, there could be no doubt
about that. What could have happened so suddenly to put a spoke in the
rapidly turning wheels of his plans? Black fell to puzzling over it,
himself growing every moment more disturbed. He cared tremendously
what happened to Red; he found himself caring more and more with each
succeeding thought about it.
He was on his way to the station, to take a train for a distant city,
where was to be held a reunion of his seminary class in the old halls
of their training. He had been looking forward to it for weeks, in
expectation of meeting certain classmates whom he had not seen for
six years, and some of whom he might never meet again. He had been
exchanging letter after letter with them about it, and anticipating
the event with the ardour with which most men look forward to such
reunions at that period in life. There was nothing to do but go, of
course; though by now he was longing intensely to follow up Red, by
some means, and find out what was the matter. He hadn’t liked the look
in those hazel eyes, usually so full of spirit and purpose; the more he
thought about it the surer he grew that Red was at some crisis in his
life, and that he needed something he hadn’t got to help him face it.
Of course he must be horribly disappointed not to be going across, oh,
desperately disappointed! But there was more than that in the situation
to make him look like that, Black was sure of it.
His feet continued to move toward the station, his eyes lifting to
the clock upon its tower, which warned him that he must lose no time.
He had his ticket and a sleeper reservation--it was fifteen hours’
journey back to the old ivy-covered halls which had grown dearer in
his memory with each succeeding year of his absence. He was thinking
that he couldn’t disappoint Evans, his best friend, or Desboro, his
old college chum who was going to China on the next ship that sailed;
such appointments were sacred--the men would never quite forgive him
if he threw them over. But this he could do: he could go on for the
dinner which was to take place the following evening, and then catch
a late train back, cutting the rest of the program, and reaching home
again after only forty-eight hours’ interval; he had expected to be
absent at least five days. No, he couldn’t, either. Desboro was on for
an address, that second evening, for which he had expressed particular
hope that Black would remain. Desboro was a sensitive chap and he was
going to China. Well--what----
His train had been called; those determined feet of his took him
toward it, though his mind was now slowing them perceptibly. And then,
suddenly, his will took charge of the matter--his will, and his love.
He loved Red Pepper Burns--he knew it now, if he had not fully known it
before; loved him even better than he did Desboro, or Evans, or any of
the rest of them for whom he had cared so much in the old days. And Red
was in trouble. Could he leave him to go on to hear Desboro’s speech,
or wring Evans’ hand, or even to hear a certain one of his adored old
professors say: “I’m especially glad to see you, Black--I want to hear
all about you----” a probability he had been happily visualizing as
worth the trip, though he should get nothing more out of it.
He turned about face with determination, his decision made. What was
a class reunion, with all its pleasures--and its disappointments,
too--compared with standing by a friend who needed him? The
consciousness that Red was quite as likely to repel as to welcome
him--more likely, at that--lent no hesitation to his steps. He went
back to the ticket windows, succeeded in getting his money returned,
and retraced his steps to the manse even more rapidly than he had
come away from it. It was only as he let himself in at the door that
he remembered that his little vacation was Mrs. Hodder’s as well, and
that at his insistence she had left early that morning. He grinned
rather ruefully at this thought; so it was to be burned toast and
tinned beans again, instead of banquet food! Well, when a fellow was
making sacrifices for a friend, let him make them and not permit the
thought of a little lost food to make him hesitate. Banquets--and
beans--interesting alliteration! And now--to find out about Red without
loss of time.
Ten minutes later he was in Red’s home, standing, hat in hand, before
Mrs. Burns, who had come to him without delay.
“I saw your husband just a minute this morning, and he told me it was
all off with his going to France. That’s all he said--except that he
had no time to talk about it. Of course I understood that he didn’t
want _me_ to talk about it. But something in his looks made me a
little anxious. I thought you wouldn’t mind my coming to you. If you
don’t want to tell me anything more, Mrs. Burns, that’s all right. But
I wanted you to know that if anything has happened to make him--or
you--unhappy, I care very much. And I wish I could help.”
Ellen Burns looked up into his face, and saw there all that one could
wish to see in a friend’s face when one is in trouble. She answered as
frankly as he had spoken, and he couldn’t help seeing that his coming
was a relief to her.
“I’m going to tell you, Mr. Black,” she said. She remained standing;
Black thought it might be because she was too ill at ease in mind
to think of sitting down. “I am anxious about Red, too, because he
doesn’t seem at all himself, since this happened. Two days ago his
good friend Doctor Buller told him there was no chance of his passing
the physical tests necessary for getting across, on account of trouble
with his heart--which he hadn’t even suspected. He was very ill with
blood poisoning two years ago. The disappointment has been even greater
than I could have imagined it would be; he has never set his heart on
anything as he has on this chance to be of service in France. Of course
I am disappointed, too--I meant to follow him soon, when we could
arrange it. And--it goes without saying--that the reason which keeps
him is a good deal of a blow to me.”
“Yes--of course.”
She was speaking very quietly, and with entire control of voice and
manner, and the sympathetic understanding in his tone did not undermine
her, because there was no weakness in it.
“But--we have accepted it; there’s nothing else to do. Doctor Buller
says it doesn’t mean that Red can’t go on working as hard as ever, for
a long time--here. But that doesn’t help him any, just yet. He has
been in--a mood--so dark ever since he knew, that even I can’t seem to
lighten it. And just before you came I found--this. It--does make me
anxious, Mr. Black, because I don’t quite know----”
She put her hand into a fold of her dress and brought out a leaf from
the daily memorandum pad with a large sized date at the top, which was
accustomed to lie on Red’s desk. He was in the habit of leaving upon
it, each time he went out, a list of calls, or a statement regarding
his whereabouts, that his office nurse or his wife might have no
difficulty in finding him in case of need. In the present instance
the page was well covered with the morning and afternoon lists of his
regular rounds, including an early morning operation at the hospital.
But the latest entry was of a different character. At the very
bottom of the sheet, in the only space left, was scrawled the usual
preliminary phrase, followed by a long and heavy dash, so that the
effect of the whole was inevitably suggestive of a reckless mood: “Gone
to ----”
Black studied this for some seconds before he lifted his eyes. “It may
mean nothing at all,” he said, as quietly as Mrs. Burns had spoken,
“except the reflection of his unhappiness. I can’t think it could
mean anything else. Just the same”--and now he looked at the lovely
face before him, to see in it that he might offer to do anything at
all which could mean help for Red--“I think I’d like to find him for
you--and I will. I’m sure I can, even though you don’t know where he
has gone. Can you guess at all where it might be?”
“He had the car,” she said, considering, “and he’s very
apt, when things have gone wrong, to get off out of doors
somewhere--alone--though he’s quite as likely to work off his trouble
by driving at a furious pace over miles and miles of road. I’ve known
him to jump out of the car and dash off into the woods, in some place
I’d never seen before, and come back all out of breath and laughing,
and say he’d left it all behind. I think, perhaps, that’s what he’s
doing now. I hope he’ll come back laughing this time, though I--I can’t
help wishing he’d taken me with him.”
“I wish he had.” Black thought he had never seen a woman take a thing
like this with so much sense and courage. How could Red have left her
behind, he wondered, just now, when she could do so much for him?
Or--couldn’t she? Could any woman, no matter how finely understanding,
do for him quite what another man could--a man who would know better
than any woman just what it must mean to have the foundations suddenly
knocked out from under him like that? “But,” he went on quickly, “I
don’t think it will be difficult to find him because--there’s a way.
And I’m going now, to try it. Don’t be worried. I have a strong feeling
that your husband is coming out of this a bigger man even than when it
hit him--he’s that sort of man.” He was silent an instant, and then
went on: “And he won’t do anything God doesn’t mean him to do--because
he isn’t _that_ sort of man. He’s not afraid of death--but he isn’t
afraid of life, either. Good-bye--it’s going to be all right.”
They smiled at each other, heartened, both, by the thought of action.
Black got away at once. It was, by now, well after six o’clock. He had
had no dinner, but it didn’t occur to him to look out for food before
he started on the long walk he meant to take. For, somehow, he was
suddenly quite sure he knew where to go....
* * * * *
He had guessed right. Was it a guess? As he had walked at his best
speed out of the town and over the highway toward the road upon which
Red had taken him that winter night, months ago, he had been saying
over and over, “Don’t let me be wrong, Lord--you know I’ve _got_ to
find him!” He was remembering something Red had said when he first
led him up the trail and out upon the rocky little plateau: “This
is a place I’ve never brought anybody to--not even my wife, as it
happens--and probably wouldn’t be bringing you if we had time to go
farther. I come here sometimes--to thrash things out, or get rid of my
ugly temper. The place is littered with my chips.”
He recalled answering, “All right, Doctor. I won’t be looking for the
chips.” But he had thoroughly appreciated being brought to the spot
at all, recognizing it for one of those intimate places in a man’s
experience which he keeps very much to himself. Where, now, would Red
be so likely to go if he had something still to “thrash out,” after the
two days of storm following the shock of Doctor Buller’s revelation?
At the bottom of the hill, well-hidden in a thicket of trees, Black
came upon the car--and suddenly slowed his pace. He was close upon Red,
then, and about to thrust himself in where he was pretty sure not to
be wanted--at first. He meant to make himself wanted, if he knew how.
Did he know how? Ah, that was where he must have help. It was going
to take more than human wisdom, thus to try to deal with the sore
heart, the baffled spirit, of the man who couldn’t have his own way at
what doubtless seemed to him the greatest moment of his life. Black
stopped short, close to a great oak, and put up his arm against it,
and hid his face in his arm, and asked God mightily that in this hour
He would use His servant’s personality as He would use a tool in His
workshop, and show him how to come as close and touch as gently--and
withal as healingly--as it might be possible for human personality to
do when backed and reinforced by the Divine. A pretty big request?
Yes, but the need was big. And Black didn’t put it in any such exalted
phrasing--remember that. What he said was just this: “Please let me
help. I _must_ help, for he needs me--and I don’t know how. But You
do--and You can show me.”
Then, after a minute, he went on, springing up the trail, which was
plain enough now, even in the fading daylight, to be easily followed.
As he reached the top he came in sight of Red through the trees, and
stopped short, not so much to regain his breath as because the sight of
the man he had come to find made his heart turn over in sympathy, and
for that instant he couldn’t go on.
Yet Red was in no dramatic attitude of despair. To the casual eye he
would have looked as normal as man could look. He sat upon a log--one
of two, facing each other, with a pile of blackened sticks and ashes
between, reminiscent of past campfires. There had been no fire there
recently--no spark lingered to tell the tale of warmth and light and
comradeship that may be found in a fire. And what Red was doing was
merely whittling a stick. Surely no tragedy was here, or fear of
one.... The thing that told the tale, though, unmistakably, to Black’s
sharpened eyes, was this: that the ground was littered deep, all
about Red’s feet, with the fresh whittlings of many sticks. “Chips,”
indeed! Chips out of his very life, Black knew they were; hewed away
ruthlessly, with no regard as to what was left behind in the cutting,
or what was made thereof.
He could not stand and look on, unobserved, of course. So he came on,
striding ahead; and when Red at last looked up it was to see Black
advancing confidently, as a friend comes to join a friend. Red stared
across the space; his eyes looked dazed, and a little bloodshot.
“I’ve come,” said Black, simply, “because, Red, I thought you needed
me. Maybe you don’t want me, but I think you need me, and I’m hoping
you won’t send me away. I don’t think I’ll go if you do.”
Red’s odd, almost unseeing gaze returned to the stick in his hand. He
cut away two or three more big chunks from it, leaving it an unsightly
remnant; then flung it away, to join the other jagged remnants upon the
ground.
“Yes,” he said, in a hoarse voice quite unlike his own, “I guess maybe
I do.”
Black’s heart leaped. He had not expected a reception like this. To
be kicked out--metaphorically--or to be ungraciously permitted to
remain--that was the best he could have hoped for. He sat down upon the
other log, took off his hat and ran his hand through the locks on his
moist brow; he was both warm and tired, but he was not in the least
conscious of either fact. All he knew or cared for was that he had
found his man--and had his chance at last! And now that he had it--the
chance he had so long wanted, to make this man he loved his friend
forever--he was not thinking of that part of his wish at all. He had
got beyond that; all he wanted now was to see him through his trouble,
though it might make him less his friend than ever.
The two sat in silence for a minute. Then Red spoke. With an odd twist
of the mouth he pointed to an axe lying at the foot of a tree not far
away. Above it, in the trunk, showed a great fresh gash, the beginning
of a skilled woodsman’s work upon a tree which he means to fell.
“I began to chop down that tree,” he said, in the same queer, hoarse
voice. “That’s what I’ve always done--when the pressure got too
high. Then--I remembered. If I chopped it down, I might--end things.
There’s no telling. Buller says my machinery’s got past the chopping
point--it’s time to take to whittling. So--I’m whittling--as you see.”
“I see,” said Black. He spoke cheerfully--there was no pity in his
voice. In his eyes--but Red was not looking at those.
“That’s why,” went on Red, after a minute, “I’m not going to France.
They don’t need whittlers over there.”
“Do you think you’re a whittler?”
“What else?”
“You don’t look much like one--to me.”
“Don’t say that to me!” challenged Red, with a touch of the old
fire. “There’s no cure for my hurt in the thought that I can keep on
working--over here--until the machinery breaks down entirely--which
may not be for a good while yet. I want what I want--and I can’t have
it. What I can have’s no good compared with that. It may look good to
you--it doesn’t to me. That’s all there is of it.”
“You don’t look like a whittler to me,” Black repeated, sturdily. “You
look like a tree chopper. I can’t--and won’t--think of you any other
way.... I wish you’d put up that knife!”
Red stared at him. “Make you nervous?” he questioned.
“It makes _you_ nervous. Put it up. Play with the axe, if you like;
that’s more in character.”
The two looked each other in the eye for a minute. The clear gaze of
Black met the bloodshot one of Red.
“Here--I’ll get it for you,” offered Black, and got up and went over
and picked up the axe, its blade shining, its edge keen as one of Red’s
instruments. Black ran his fingers cautiously along it. “I suppose
no surgeon ever owned a dull axe,” he commented, as he brought it to
Red. “This would cut a hair, I think. Take it--and put up the knife to
please me, will you?”
“Anything to oblige.” Grimly Red accepted the axe, snapped the knife
shut and dropped it into his pocket. “Anything else? Going to preach to
me now with the axe for a text?”
“I think so. I’m glad you’re ready. But the axe won’t do for a
text--nor even for an illustration. I’ve got that here.” He put his
hand to his pocket and drew out a little, worn, leather-bound Book,
over which he looked with a keen, fearless gaze at Red. “See here,”
he said. “I could try a lot of applied psychology leading up to this
little Book--and you’d recognize, all the way, that that was what I
was doing. What’s the use? When you go to see a patient, and know by
the look of him and the few things he tells you what’s the matter, you
don’t lead up by degrees to giving him the medicine he needs, do you?
Not you! You write your prescription on the spot, and say ‘Take this.’
And he takes it and gets well.”
“Or dies--if I’m out of luck. It isn’t the medicine that decides it,
either way. It’s his own power of resistance. So your simile’s no good.”
Black nodded. This sounded to him somewhat more like the old Red.
“Yours is, then,” he said. “It’s your power of resistance I’m calling
on. You used it just now--when you stopped chopping at that tree. Do
you think I don’t know--you wanted to keep on, and take the possible
consequences--which you almost hoped--or thought you hoped--would be
the probable ones?”
And now Red’s startled eyes met his. “My God!” he ejaculated, and got
to his feet quickly, dropping the axe. He strode away among the trees
for a minute, then came slowly back.
“Do you think, Bob Black,” he demanded, “you dare tackle a case like
mine? I see you know what I’m up against. Do you imagine there’s
anything in that Book there that--fits my case?” And Black saw that
his eyes looked hungrily at the little Book--as men’s eyes have looked
since it was given shape. When there is nowhere else to go for wisdom,
even the most unwonted hands open the Book--and find there what they
honestly seek.
“I know there is.” Black opened the Book--it fell open easily, as one
much used. He looked along its pages, as one familiar with every line.
It took but a moment to find the words he sought. In a clear, quiet
voice he read the great, brave words of Paul the apostle:
“Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth
the prize? So run, that ye may obtain.
And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all
things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an
incorruptible.
I therefore so run, not as uncertainly; so fight I, not as one that
beateth the air:
But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection, lest that
by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a
castaway.”
A long silence followed the reading of these words. Suddenly it had
seemed to Robert Black that nothing he could say could possibly add
to the splendid challenge of them to a flagging human spirit. Almost
immediately upon reading the last word he had walked away--he had risen
to read them, as if such words could be said only by a man upon his
feet. He was gone for perhaps ten minutes, and all the while his heart
was back there by the ashes of the dead campfire with Red--fighting
alone, as a man must fight, no matter how his friend would help him.
Somehow Black was sure that he _was_ fighting--it was not in Red--it
couldn’t be--to lay down his arms. Or, if he had in this one black hour
laid them down, it would be to take them up again--it _must_ be so. All
Black’s own dogged will, plus his love and his faith in God and in this
man, were back there in the woods with Red.
By and by he went back himself. Red was no longer sitting on the
log, he was standing by a tree, at the edge of the plateau, looking
off through a narrow vista at the blue hills in the distance all but
veiled now in the dimness of the coming night. At the sound of Black’s
footsteps on the snapping twigs he turned.
“Well, lad,” he said, in a weary voice which was yet quite his own,
“I guess you’ve won out over my particular personal devil this time.
I _have_ ‘preached to others’--I expect I’ve got to stand by my own
preaching now. It’s all right. I’d got too used to having my own
way--or forcing it--that’s all. I’ll try to take my medicine like a
man. I’ve been taking it--like a coward. Now--we’ll say no more about
it.”
“Not another word. Except--would you mind if I built a little fire, and
burned up those chips?”
“I wish you would.”
With quick motions Black made a heap of them on the old campfire ashes,
touched them off with the match Red silently handed him--he had matches
of his own, but he took Red’s--and stood looking down into the curling
flames. The chips burned as merrily and brilliantly as if they had not
been the signs of human despair, and the two men watched till the small
fire had burned down to a last orange glow of embers.
Then Black, taking off his hat, said in a way so simple that the
listening ears could not want to be stopped from the sound of the
words: “Please, Lord, help us to run, ‘_not uncertainly_,’ nor fight,
as those that ‘_beat the air_.’ Give us faith and courage for the long
way--and bring us to the end of the course, by and by--but not till we
have ‘_run a good race_’--all the way. Amen.”
Still silently, after that, the two went down the trail, now in deep
shadow. Red went first, to lead the way, and Black noted with joy that
he plunged along down the trail with much his old vigour of step. At
almost the bottom he suddenly halted and turned:
“See here, Bob Black,” he said, accusingly. “I thought you were on your
way to the station when I saw you this morning. Weren’t you off for
those doings at your old Alma Mater you’ve been counting on?”
“I changed my mind.”
“What! After you saw me?”
“Of course.”
There was an instant’s stunned silence on the red-headed doctor’s part,
broken by Black’s laugh.
“One would think you never gave up a play or a good dinner or almost
anything you’d wanted, to go and set a broken leg--or to reduce a
dislocated shoulder before breakfast!”
But when Red finally spoke the hoarseness was back in his voice--only
it seemed to be a different sort of hoarseness:
“What did you do it for?”
“I think you know. Because I wanted to stand by you.”
Red turned again, and began to go on down the trail. But at the bottom
he once more stopped short.
“Lad,” he said, with some diffidence, “there’s a story in that Book of
yours--the other part of it--that always interested me, only I didn’t
think there were many examples of that sort of standing by in present
days. I begin to think there may be one or two.”
“Which story is that?” Black asked, eagerly--though he concealed the
eagerness.
“That--I’ll have to leave you to guess!” said the other man--and said
not another word all the way home. He sent the car at its swiftest
pace along the road, took Black to his own door, held his hand for an
instant in a hard grip, said “Good-night!” in his very gruffest tone,
and left him.
But Black had guessed. And he had won his friend--for good and all,
now--he was sure of that. How could it be otherwise?