git somethin' real bad yeh got to come 'ere. Look at yerself!”
“Arrah! an' that was the docthor, Hivin be swate to him! He tuk a notion
t' me fer a good turn I done him wance. Begob, there's a man fer ye!
Talk about yer white min! Talk about yer prachers an' the like! There's
a man fer ye, an' there's none to measure wid him in the mountains!”
“Dr. Bailey, I suppose ye're talkin' about?” inquired Ben, with fine
scorn.
“Yis, Dr. Bailey, an' that's the first two letters av his name. An' whin
ye find a man to stand forninst him, by the howly poker! I'll ate him
alive, an' so I will.”
“Well, I hain't agoin' to say, Mr. Tate,” said Ben, with studied,
politeness, “that no doctor can never compare with a preacher, for I've
seen a doctor myself, an' there's the kind of work he done,” displaying
his wooden leg and foot with pride. “But what I say is that w'en it
comes to doin' real 'igh-class, fine work, give me the Reverend Richard
Boyle, Esquire. Yes, sir, sez I, Dick Boyle's the man fer me!”
“Aw, gwan now wid ye! An' wud ye be afther puttin' a preacher in the
same car wid a docthor, an' him the Medical Superintendent av the
railway?”
“I hain't talkin' 'bout preachers an' doctors in general,” replied
Ben, keeping himself firmly in hand, “but I'm talkin' about this 'ere
preacher, the Reverend Richard Boyle.” Ben's attention to the finer
courtesies in conversation always increased with his wrath. “An' that
I'll stick to, for there's no man in these 'ere mountain 'as done more
fer this 'ere country than that same Reverend Richard Boyle, Esquire.”
“Listen til the monkey! An' what has he done, will ye tell me?”
“Well,” said Ben, ignoring Tommy's opprobrious epithet, “I hain't got a
day to spend, but, to begin with, there's two churches up the Windermere
which--”
“Churches, is it? Sure an' what is a church good fer but to bury a man
from, forby givin' the women a place to say their prayers an' show their
hats?”
“As I was sayin',” continued Ben, “there's two churches up the
Windermere. I hain't no saint, an' I hain't no scholar, but I goes by
them as is, an' I know that there's Miss Margaret, an' I tell you”--here
Ben solemnly removed his pipe from his mouth and, holding it by the
bowl, pointed the stem, by way of emphasizing his words, straight at
Tommy's face--“I tell you she puts them churches above even this 'ere
hinstitution!” And Ben sat back in his chair to allow the full magnitude
of this fact to have its full weight with Tommy. For once Tommy was
without reply, for anything savouring of criticism of Miss Margaret or
her opinions was impossible to him.
“An' what's more,” continued Ben, “this 'ere hinstitution in which we're
a-sittin' this hour wouldn't be 'ere but fer that same preacher an'
them that backs him up. That's yer churches fer yeh!” And still Tommy
remained silent.
“An' if yeh want to knew more about him, you ask Magee there, an'
Morrison an' Old Cap Jim an' a 'eap of fellows about this 'ere preacher,
an' 'ear 'em talk. Don't ask me. 'Ear 'em talk w'en they git time. They
wuz a blawsted lot of drunken fools, workin' for the whiskey-sellers
an' the tin-horn gamblers. Now they're straight an' sendin' their money
'ome. An' there's some as I know would be a lot better if they done the
same.”
“Manin' mesilf, ye blaggard! An' tis thrue fer ye. But luk at the
docthor, will ye, ain't he down on the whiskey, too?”
“Yes, that's w'at I 'ear,” conceded Ben. “But e'll soak 'em good at
poker.”
“Bedad, it's the truth ye're spakin,” said Tommy enthusiastically. “An'
it wud do ye more good than a month's masses to see him take the hair
aff the tin horns, the divil fly away wid thim! An' luk at the 'rid
lights'--”
“'Red lights'?” interrupted Ben. “Now ye're talkin'. Who cleared up the
'rid lights' at Bull Crossin'.”
“Who did, thin?”
“Who? The Reverend Richard Boyle is the man.”
“Aw, run in an' shut the dure! Ye're walkin' in yer slape.”
“Mr. Tate, I 'appen to know the facts in this 'ere particular case,
beggin' yer 'umble pardon.” Ben's h's became more lubricous with his
rising indignation. “An' I 'appen to know that agin the Pioneer's
violent opposition, agin the business men, agin his own helder a-keepin'
the drug shop, agin the hagent of the town site an' agin the whole
blawsted, bloomin' population, that 'ere preacher put up a fight, by the
jumpin' Jemima! that made 'em all 'unt their 'oles!”
“Aw, Benny, it's wanderin' agin ye are! Did ye niver hear how the
docthor walked intil the big meetin' an' in five minutes made the iditor
av the Pioneer an' the town site agent an' that bunch look like last
year's potaty patch fer ould shaws, wid the spache he gave thim?”
“No,” said Ben, “I didn't 'ear any such thing, I didn't.”
“Well, thin, go out into society, me bhoy, an' kape yer ears clane.”
“My ears don't require no such cleanin' as some I know!” cried Ben,
whose self-control was strained to the point of breaking.
“Manin' mesilf agin. Begorra, it's yer game leg that saves ye from a
batin'!”
“I don't fight no sick man in our own 'ospital,” replied Ben scornfully,
“but w'en yer sufficiently recovered, I'd be proud to haccommodate yeh.
But as fer this 'ere preacher--”
“Aw, go on wid yer preacher an' yer hull outfit! The docthor yonder's
worth--”
“Now, Mr. Tate, this 'ere's goin' past the limit. I can put up with a
good deal of abuse from a sick man, but w'en I 'ears any reflections
thrown out at this 'ere 'ospital an' them as runs it, by the livin'
jumpin' Jemima Jebbs! I hain't goin' to stand it, not me!” Ben's voice
rose in a shrill cry of anger. “I'd 'ave yeh to know that the 'ead of
this 'ere hinstitution--”
“Aw, whist now, ye blatherin' bletherskite, who's talkin' about the
Head? The Head, is it? An' d'ye think I'd sthand--Howly Moses! here she
comes, an' the angels thimsilves wud luk like last year beside her!”
“Good-morning, Tommy. Why, I do think you are looking remarkably well
to-day,” cried the matron, her brisk step, bright face, and cheery voice
eloquent of her splendid vitality and high spirit.
“Och! thin, an' who wudn't luk well in your prisince?” said the gallant
little Irishman, with a touch to his hat. “Sure, it's better than the
sunlight to see the smile av yer pritty face.”
“Now, Tommy, Tommy, we'll have to be sending you away if you go on
like that. It's a sure sign of convalescence when an Irishman begins to
blarney.”
“Blarney, indade! Bedad, it's God's mercy I don't have to blarney, for I
haven't the strength to do that same.”
“Well, Tommy, don't try. Keep your strength for getting well again. Ben,
I think I saw Mr. Boyle riding up. Will you please go and take his horse
and show him up to the office. I am just wanting his help in preparing
my annual report.”
“Report!” cried Ben. “A day like this! No, sez I; git out into the woods
an' git a little colour into yer cheeks. It'll do him good, too. This'
ere hinstitution is takin' the life out o' yeh.”
And Ben went away grumbling his discontent and wrath at the matron's
inability to take thought for herself.
The tiny office was bare enough of beauty, but from the window there
stretched a scene glorious in its majestic sweep and in its varied
loveliness. Down over the tops of second-growth jack pine and Douglas
fir one looked straight into the roaring gorge of the Goat River filled
with misty light and overhung with an arching rainbow. Up the other side
climbed the hills in soft folds of pine tops and, beyond the pines, to
the sheer, grey, rocky peaks in whose clefts and crags the snow lay
like fretted silver. Far up the valley to the east the line of the new
railway gleamed here and there through the pines, while to the west
the Goat River gorge issued into the splendid expanse of the Kootenay
Valley, forest-clad and lying now in all the sunlit glory of its new
spring dress.
For some moments Dick stood gazing. “Of all views I see, this is the
best,” he said. “Day or night I can get it clear as I see it now, and it
always brings me rest and comfort.”
“Rest and comfort?” echoed Margaret, coming to his side. “Yes, I
understand that, especially with the sunlight upon it. But at night,
Dick, with the moon high above that peak there and filling with its
light all the valleys, do you know, I hardly dare look at it long.”
“I understand,” replied Dick, slowly. “Barney used to say the same about
the moonlight on the view from the hillcrest above the Mill.”
Then a silence fell between them. The deepest, nearest thought with each
was Barney. It was always Barney. Resolutely they refused to allow the
name to reach their lips except at rare intervals, but each knew how the
thought of him lurked in the heart, ready to leap into full view with
every deeper throb.
“Come, this won't do,” said Margaret, almost sharply.
“No, it won't do,” replied Dick, each reading the thought in the other's
heart.
“I am struggling with my report,” said Margaret in a business-like tone.
“What shall I say? How shall I begin?”
“Your report, eh? Better let me write it. I'll tell them things that
will make them sit up. What copy there would be in it for the Daily
Telegraph! The lonely outpost of civilization, the incoming stream of
maimed and wounded, of sick and lonely, the outgoing stream healed and
hopeful, and all singing the praises of the Lady of Kuskinook.”
“Hush, Dick,” said Margaret softly. “You are forgetting the man who
travels the lonely trails to the camps and up the gulches for the sick
and wounded and brings them out on his broncho's back and his own, too,
watches by them and prays with them, who yarns to them and sings to them
till they forget their homesickness, which is the sickness the hospital
cannot cure.”
“Oh, draw it mild, Margaret. Well, we'll give it up. The best part of
this report will be that that is never written, except on the hearts and
in the lives of the poor chaps who will think of the Lady of Kuskinook
any time they happen to be saying their prayers.”
“Tell me, Dick, what shall I say?”
“Begin with the statistics. Typhoids, so many--”
“What an awful lot there were, two hundred and twenty-seven of them!”
“Yes,” replied Dick. “But think of what there would have been but for
that man, Bailey! He's a wonder! He has organized the camps upon a
sanitary basis, brought in good water from the hills, established
hospitals, and all that sort of thing.”
“So you've got it, too,” said Margaret, with a smile.
“Got what?”
“Why, what I call the Bailey bacillus. From the general manager, Mr.
Fahey, down to Tommy Tate, it seems to have gone everywhere.”
“Is that so?” replied Dick, laughing. “Well, there are some who have
escaped the tin-horn gang and the whiskey runners. Or rather, they've
got it, but it's a different kind. Some day they'll kill him.”
“And yet they say he is--”
“Oh, I know. He does gamble, and when he gets going he's a terror. But
he's down on the whiskey and on the 'red lights.' You remember the big
fight at Bull Crossing? It was Bailey pulled me out of that hole. The
Pioneer was slating me, Colonel Hilliers, the town site agent, was
fighting me, withdrew his offer of a site for our church unless I'd
leave the 'red lights' alone, and went everywhere quoting the British
army in India against me. Even my own men, church members, mind you,
one of them an elder, thought I should attend to my own business. These
people were their best customers. Why, they actually went so far as to
write to the Presbytery that I was antagonizing the people and ruining
the Church. Well, you remember the big meeting called to protest against
this vice? The enemy packed the house. Had half a dozen speakers for the
'Liberal' side. Unfortunately I had been sent for to see a fellow dying
up the line. It looked for a complete knockout for me. In came Dr.
Bailey, waited till they were all through their talk, and then went for
them. He didn't speak more than ten minutes, but in those ten minutes he
crumpled them up utterly and absolutely. Colonel Hilliers and the editor
of The Pioneer, I understand, went white and red, yellow and green, by
turns. The crowd simply yelled. You know he is tremendously popular with
the men. They passed my resolution standing on the backs of their seats.
Quite true, the doctor went from the meeting to a big poker game and
stayed at it all night. But I'm inclined to forgive him that, and all
the more because I am told he was after that fellow 'Mexico' and his
gang. Oh, it was a fine bit of work. I've often wished to meet him, but
he's a hard man to find. He must be a good sort at bottom.”
“To hear Tommy talk,” replied Margaret, “you would make up your mind
he was a saint. He tells the most heart-moving stories of his ways and
doings, nursing the sick and helping those who are down on their luck.
Why, he and Ben almost came to blows this morning in regard to the
comparative merits of the doctor and yourself.”
“Ben, eh? I can never be thankful enough,” said Dick earnestly, “that
you brought Ben West with you. It always makes me feel safer to think
that he is here.”
“Ben will agree with you,” replied Margaret, “I assure you. He assumes
full care of me and of the whole institution.”
“Good boy, Ben,” said Dick, heartily. “And he is a kind of link to that
old home and--with the past, the beautiful past, the past I like to
think of.” The shadows were creeping up on Dick's face, deepening its
lines and emphasizing the look of weariness and unrest.
“A beautiful past it was,” replied Margaret gently. “We ought to be
thankful that we have it.”
“Have you heard anything?” inquired Dick.
“No. Iola's letter was the last. He had left London shortly after her
arrival, so Jack Charrington had told her. She didn't know where he had
gone. Charrington thought to the West somewhere, but there has been no
word since.”
Dick put his head on the table and groaned aloud.
“Never mind, Dick, boy,” said Margaret, laying her hand upon his head as
if he had been a child, “it will all come right some day.”
“I can't stand it, Margaret!” groaned Dick, “I shut it out from me for
weeks and then it all comes over me again. It was my cursed folly that
wrecked everything! Wrecked Barney's life, Iola's, too, for all I know,
and mine!”
“You must not say wrecked,” replied Margaret.
“What other word is there? Wrecked and ruined. I know what you would
say; but whatever the next life has for us, there is nothing left in
this that can atone!”
“That, too, you must not say, Dick,” said Margaret. “God has something
yet for us. He always keeps for us better than He has given. The best is
always before us. Besides,” she continued eagerly, “He has given you all
this work to do, this beautiful work.”
The word recalled Dick. He sat up straight. “Yes, yes, I must not
forget. I am not worthy to touch it. He gave me this chance to work.
What else should I want? And after all, this is the best. I can't help
the heart-hunger now and then, but God forbid I should ever say a word
of anything but gratitude. I was down, down, far down out of sight. He
pulled me up. Who am I to complain? But I am not complaining! It is not
for myself. If there were only one word to know he was doing well, was
safe!” He turned suddenly to Margaret with an almost fierce earnestness.
“Margaret, do you think God will give me this?” His voice was hoarse
with the intensity of his passion. “Do you know, I sometimes feel that I
don't want Heaven without this. I never pray for anything else. Wealth,
honour, fame, I once longed for these. But now these are nothing to me
if only I knew Barney was right and safe and well. Yes, even my love for
you, Margaret, the best thing, the truest thing next to my love of my
Lord, I'd give up to know. But three years have gone since that awful
night and not a word! It eats and eats and eats into me here,” he smote
himself hard over his heart, “till the actual physical pain is at times
more than I can stand. What do you think, Margaret?” he continued, his
face quivering piteously. “Every time I think of God I think of Barney.
Every prayer I make I ask for Barney. I wake at night and it is Barney I
am thinking of. Can I stand this long? Will I have to stand it long?
Has God forgiven me? And when He forgives, does He take away the pain?
Sometimes I wonder if there is anything in all this I preach!”
“Hush, Dick!” said Margaret, her voice broken with the grief she
understood only too well. “Hush! You must not doubt God. God forgives
and loves and grieves with our griefs. He will take away the pain as
soon as He can. You must believe this and wait and trust. God will give
him back to us. I feel it here.” She laid her hand upon her heaving
breast.
For some moments Dick was silent. “Perhaps so,” he said at length. “For
your sake He might. Yes, down in my heart I believe he will.”
“Come,” said Margaret, “let us go out into the open air, into God's
sunlight. We shall feel better there. Come, Dick, let us go and see the
Goat cavort.” She took him by the arm and lifted him up. At the door she
met Ben. “I won't be gone long, Ben,” she explained.
“Stay as long as yeh like, Miss Margaret,” replied Ben graciously. “An'
the longer yeh stay the better fer the hinstitution.”
“That's an extremely doubtful compliment,” laughed Margaret, as they
passed down the winding path that made its way through the tall red
pines to the rocky bank of the Goat River. There on a broad ledge of
rock that jutted out over the boiling water, Margaret seated herself
with her back against the big red polished bole of a pine tree, while
at her feet Dick threw himself, reclining against a huge pine root that
threw great clinging arms here and there about the rocky ledges. It
was a sweet May day. All the scents and sounds of spring filled up
the fragrant spaces of the woods. Far up through the great feathering
branches gleamed patches of blue sky. On every side stretched long
aisles pillared with the clean red trunks of the pine trees wrought in
network pattern. At their feet raged the Goat, foaming out his futile
fury at the unmoved black rocks. Up the rocky sides from the water's
edge, bravely clinging to nook and cranny, running along ledges, hanging
trembling to ragged edges, boldly climbing up to the forest, were all
spring's myriad tender things wherewith she redeems Nature from winter's
ugliness. From the river below came gusts of misty wind, waves of
sound of the water's many voices. It was a spot where Nature's kindly
ministries got about the spirit, healing, soothing, resting.
With hardly a word, Dick lay for an hour, watching the pine branches
wave about him and listening to the voices that came from the woods
around and from the waters below, till the fever and the doubt passed
from his heart and he grew strong and ready for the road again.
“You don't know how good this is, Margaret,” he said, “all this about
me. No, it's you. It's you, Margaret. If I could see you oftener I could
bear it better. You shame me and you make me a man again. Oh, Margaret!
if only you could let me hope that some day--”
“Look, Dick!” she cried, springing to her feet, “there's the train.”
It was still a novelty to see the long line of cars wind its way like
some great jointed reptile through the woods below.
“Tell me, Margaret,” continued Dick, “is it quite impossible?”
“Oh, Dick!” cried the girl, her face full of pain, “don't ask me!”
“Can it never be, Margaret, in the years to come?”
She clasped her hands above her heart. “Dick,” she cried piteously, “I
can't see how it can be. My heart is not my own. While Barney lives I
could not be true and be another's wife.”
“While Barney lives!” echoed Dick blankly. “Then God grant you may
never be mine!” He stood straight for a moment, then with a shake of his
shoulders, as if adjusting a load, he stepped into the path. “Come, let
us go,” he said. “There will be letters and I must get to work.”
“Yes, Dick dear,” said Margaret, her voice full of tender pity, “there's
always our work, thank God!”
Together they entered the shady path, going back to the work which was
to them, as to many others, God's salvation.
There were a number of letters lying on the office desk that day, but
one among them made Margaret's heart beat quick. It was from Iola. She
caught it up and tore it open. It might hold a word of Barney. She was
not mistaken. Hurriedly she read through Iola's glowing accounts of
her season's triumph with Wagner. “It has been a great, a glorious
experience,” wrote Iola. “I cannot be far from the top now. The critics
actually classed me with the great Malten. Oh, it was glorious. But I am
tired out. The doctors say there is something wrong, but I think it is
only that I am tired to death. They say I cannot sing for a year, but
I don't want to sing for a long, long time. I want you, Margaret, and I
want--oh, fool that I was!--I may as well out with it--I want Barney.
I have no shame at all. If I knew where to find him I would ask him to
come. But he would not. He loathes me, I know. If I were only with you
at the manse or at the Old Mill I should soon be strong. Sometimes I am
afraid I shall never be. But if I could see you! I think that is it. I
am weary for those I love. Love! Love! Love! That is the best. If you
have your chance, Margaret, don't throw away love! There, this letter
has tired me out. My face is hot as I read it and my heart is sore. But
I must let it go.” The tears were streaming down Margaret's face as she
read.
“Read it, Dick,” she said brokenly, thrusting the letter into his hands.
Dick read it and gave it back to her without a word.
“Oh, where is he?” cried Margaret, wringing her hands. “If we only
knew!”
“The date is a month old,” said Dick. “I think one of us must go. You
must go, Margaret.”
“No, Dick, it must be you.”
“Oh, not I, Margaret! Not I! You remember--”
“Yes, you, Dick. For Barney's sake you must go.”
“For Barney's sake,” said Dick, with a sob in his throat. “Yes, I'll
go. I'll go to-night. No, I must go to see a man dying in the Big Horn
Canyon. Next day I'll be off. I'll bring her back to him. Oh! if I could
only bring her back for him, dear old boy! God give me this!”
“Amen,” said Margaret with white lips. For hope lives long and dies
hard.
XX
UNTIL SEVENTY TIMES SEVEN
The Big Horn flowed by a tortuous and rapid course through rough country
into the Goat. The trail was bad and, in places, led over high mountain
shoulders in a way heartbreaking to packers. For this reason, all who
knew the ways and moods of a canoe chose the water in going up the
canyon. True enough, there were a number of lift-outs and two rather
long portages that made the going up pretty stiff, but if a man had
skill with the paddle and knew the water he might avoid these by running
the rapids. Men from the Ottawa or from some other north Canadian river,
like all true canoemen, hated to portage and loved to take the risk of
the rapids. Though the current was fairly rapid, going upstream was not
so difficult as one might imagine; that is, if the canoeman happened
to know how to take advantage of the eddies, how to sneak up the quiet
water by the banks, how to put the nose of his canoe into the swift
water and to hold her so that, as Duprez, the keeper of the stopping
place at the Landing, said, “She would walk on de rapide toute suite lak
one oiseau.”
There was a bad outbreak of typhoid at the upper camp on the Big Horn,
and Dr. Bailey had been urgently summoned. The upper camp lay on the
other side of the Big Horn Lake, twenty miles or more from the steel.
The lake itself was six miles long by canoe, but by trail it was at
least twice that. Hence, though there would be some stiff paddling in
the trip, the doctor did not hesitate in his choice of route. He knew
his canoe and loved every rib and thwart in her. He had learned also the
woodsman's trick of going light. A blanket, a tea pail which held his
grub, consisting of some Hudson Bay hard tack, a hunk of bacon, and a
little tea and sugar, and his drinking cup constituted his baggage, so
that he could make the portages in a single carry. Many a mile had he
gone, thus equipped, both by trail and by canoe, in his journeyings up
and down these valleys, doing his work for the sick and wounded in the
railroad, lumber, and tie camps, and more recently in the new-planted
mining towns.
It was a great day for his trip. A stiff breeze upstream would help him
in his fight with the current and coming down it would be glorious.
The sun was just appearing over the row of pines that topped the low
mountain range to the east when he packed his kit and blankets under the
gunwale in the bow and slipped his canoe into the water. He was about to
step in when a voice he had not heard for many days arrested him.