THE RIVER FLOWS BETWEEN
"Where have you been, Nance? I was getting uneasy about you."
Martin was standing in the door as Nance approached. He noted the
expression of happiness upon her face and the buoyancy of her step.
"Oh, daddy, I have had such a great time!" was the reply. "I have been
over to the hospital."
"To the hospital! What in the world took you there?"
"It was Nurse Marion. I have met her, and she is wonderful."
At these words Martin started, and glanced across the river to the log
building perched upon the opposite bank. He then turned to Nance.
"Come, little one; supper is ready. I have been waiting for you for some
time."
Nance was too greatly excited to eat much. Seldom had Martin seen her so
animated, as she described in detail her afternoon's experience.
"I wish you could see her, daddy," and Nance's eyes sparkled with
enthusiasm as she turned them upon Martin's face. "You really must.
Won't you take me over this evening? I know she would like to see you.
She asked me many things about you."
"She did?" Martin questioned with averted face.
"Yes, several times, and I told her how you taught me to play the
violin, to read, and, in fact, all I know is due to you. She was greatly
interested, and said that you must be a wonderful man."
"Did she ask you what my name was?"
"Oh, yes. I told her, too, that you were not my real father, but that
you had brought me here when I was a very little child."
"What did she say?"
"She seemed surprised, and asked if I didn't find the life here very
lonely."
"Go on," was Martin's only comment as Nance paused.
"It was so nice in her room, and she let me help her fix it up. Daddy, I
wonder if all white women--I mean good ones--are like Nurse Marion."
"Why do you ask, Nance?"
"I hardly know how to explain," the girl replied, looking thoughtfully
before her. "Nurse Marion is very beautiful, but there is something
about her I cannot understand. Her eyes are wonderful. They seem to be
always seeing things far away. Even when she was smiling there was a sad
expression in her eyes. Do you know, daddy, I believe that she has had
some great trouble in her life."
"What makes you think so, Nance?"
"It was the way she stood at times, and looked just at nothing. She
wondered how I knew so many things, having lived all my life in the
wilderness. I told her that you taught me, and that I got help from the
books I read. I told her, too, about Beryl, and----"
"You did!" Martin exclaimed. "What did she say?"
"She listened until I was through, and then she went and looked out of
the window for some time."
"Oh!"
"Yes, it seemed to make her sad. But that wasn't all. When we were
unpacking her things she came to a small package, wrapped in paper, and
tied with a piece of faded blue ribbon. She opened it and showed me two
pictures of a clergyman, so she said."
"What! But go on, Nance. Don't stop."
"In one picture the man was dressed in a funny way, 'in his robes of
office,' so Nurse Marion said. I thought he must be her brother, but she
told me that he was a man she knew years ago. He was young,
fine-looking, and----"
"You wash up the dishes, Nance," Martin interrupted. "I am going outside
for a while."
With that he strode to the door, leaving Nance sitting at the table,
thinking over what she had seen and heard, and dreaming, of the time
when she would be a nurse like the woman over the river. She noticed
nothing strange about her father's sudden departure. If she had thought
of it at all she would have attributed it to a lack of interest in what
she had been talking about.
She had barely got the dishes washed and put away, when Martin returned,
bringing with him Tom and Dad Seddon. Hearty were the greetings which
fell from the lips of the two prospectors when their eyes rested upon
Nance.
"We couldn't stay away any longer," Tom remarked, as he gave the young
woman's hand a hearty shake. "We've been jist dyin' to see ye. Dad's got
several chess problems up his sleeve all ready to hand out."
"That's good," Nance laughingly replied. "I haven't had a game for some
time. Would you like to have one now?"
"Sure thing; that's if you have time."
Soon the board was spread out, the chessmen arranged, and the two
players faced each other, while Martin and Tom sat near at hand smoking
and watching the game.
"How did you happen to come in to-day?" Nance asked, turning to Tom, as
she waited for Dad to make a move.
"We brought in Tim Cyr, who got knocked out at the diggin's, an' a
mighty surprise was waitin' fer us when we got to town, I can tell ye
that."
"Oh, I know," Nance eagerly replied. "You found Nurse Marion there,
didn't you? Isn't she lovely?"
"Indeed she is, Miss. She's all gold, if I don't mistake. Ye should have
seen the way she looked after Tim an' helped the doctor. Why, I never
saw anything like it."
"And didn't she have things fixed up in great shape," Dad remarked,
taking his eyes for the first time from off the game.
"Oh, I guess somebody helped her with that," Tom chuckled. "She told me
all about it."
"Did she?" and the look on Nance's face showed her delight. "It was so
nice to be there. She is the first white woman I ever met, and I hope to
see her often."
"Ye won't find all like her, remember, Miss," and Tom's voice had a note
of pathos in it. "She is one in a thousand. Not many would be willin' to
come in here to help us poor critters. Now, them other women, they're
here fer no good, an' they're bound to cause a lot of trouble. Something
has got to be done, an' I believe that the parson'll take a hand in the
matter to save the boys. Before the women came there was the whiskey.
Now, with both women an' whiskey things are bound to be pretty lively.
The saloon is goin' full blast, an' the parson has been worryin' a good
deal. It was in kernection with this matter that he visited us at the
diggin's to-day. He outlined his plan, an', by jiminey! we're goin' to
help him."
"Sure thing," Dad assented, as he swung up his queen, in an effort to
corner Nance's king. "We'll stand by the parson. Check!"
"Mate!" Nance triumphantly cried, bringing up a knight, and completely
cornering Dad's king.
"Well, I'll be jiggered!" the prospector exclaimed, as he studied the
clever trap into which his opponent had led him. "I didn't see what you
were up to till the last. My! that was well done, an' you certainly do
deserve the game," and he lifted his eyes, filled with admiration, to
the flushed face of his fair young woman, who had outwitted him so
cleverly.
"I hope the parson'll do as well at his game over yon," Tom quietly
remarked. "I'm afraid there'll be many checks before it's mate in his
case. But he's got good grit, an' that's a great thing in his favour.
He's made a fair start so fer in gittin' the hospital built, an' havin'
a nurse brought in. As soon as the boys see that he goes in fer
practical religion, an' if they've eyes at all they must surely see it
by now, then they'll be with him. I think that next Sunday 'ill tell the
tale."
"What's going to happen next Sunday?" Martin quietly asked.
"Didn't I tell ye? No? Well, that's queer," and Tom ran the fingers of
his right hand through his long hair. "To think that we fergot to
mention sich an important piece of news, an' it was what took the parson
all the way out to the diggin's fer, too."
"Quit yer croaking, Tom, and come to the point," Dad growled. "If you
don't I'll have to."
"Feelin' sore over yer lickin', are ye?" Tom bantered. "Well, the parson
has been doin' some serious thinkin' of late, an' so he wanted our
advice. He knew that the miners at Quaska an' on the creeks need some
attraction to keep them away from the saloon, an' to give 'em 'an'
uplift,' as he calls it. He, therefore, suggested that we hold a bang-up
service next Sunday night in the hospital. We agreed that it was a fine
idea, an' promised that we'd do all we could to round up the boys. I
don't think there will be any trouble in gittin' 'em, especially if
there's plenty of music an' singin'. With two fiddles a-playin' the boys
'ill do the rest."
This mention of the violins was a little ruse on Tom's part in order to
see how Martin would take it. But the latter made no comment. He sat
very still, looking straight before him, and Tom alone noted the
expression upon his face, from which he surmised that the quiet man was
fighting a fierce, stubborn battle.
"Ye'll play, lassie, won't ye?" Tom asked, turning to Nance. "I know
that the boys would like it great, an' the parson--well, he'll about
stand on his head."
"I should dearly love to play," Nance laughingly replied, "that is, if
daddy will let me. But perhaps I might break down in the presence of so
many men. I am sure to get nervous, and will hardly know what I am
doing."
"Don't let that trouble ye, Miss," Tom hastened to reply. "Ye have the
nurse with ye. Maybe she sings, an' if she does so much the better.
Then, if everything goes off well at the first service, the boys 'ill be
sure to flock back ag'in, an' the saloon will be a heavy loser."
Martin sat for a long time outside the door of his house after the two
prospectors had gone home. Nance, tired out, was asleep. Sounds from the
mining camp fell upon his ears. He could hear the loud talking and
laughing, mingled occasionally with the voices of women. Lights twinkled
here and there throughout the town, while the saloon down by the lake
was ablaze with numerous candles. A hilarious time was being held there,
he well knew. He compared the scene now with what it was before the
miners came. Then peace and quiet dwelt over the entire place instead of
the discords which were making the night hideous.
One small light, trailing out into the darkness, held Martin's
attention. It came from the hospital, and he thought of the woman there
who was keeping watch over the patient. This was her first night at
Quaska, and he realised how lonely she must be. He had no doubt now that
it was Beryl. The description which Nance had given, and what she had
told him, made him certain that it could be no one else. He marvelled
how strangely it had come to pass that she of all women should come to
Quaska. He thought, too, how differently their lives would have been but
for his own terrible fall. No doubt they would be living in their own
happy home, respected by all. But oh, how opposite the reality. There
was Beryl, lonely in that building over yonder, and he himself a
dejected outcast, with the future holding not a ray of hope, and the
past only gall and wormwood. What would Beryl think and do, he wondered,
if she knew that he was so near, with only the river flowing between?
But she must never know, so he told himself. Then a great longing came
upon him to see her, to look upon her face once more. It would be so
easy, he mused, to slip over the river, and peer in through the window
from which the light was streaming. He banished this idea, however, as
unmanly, and so contented himself with thinking about Beryl as he knew
her in the sweet old days before they were separated.
And so on this night while Martin sat and dreamed, a lonely,
tear-stained-faced woman stood at the little window of her room and
gazed out into the night, thinking of him, who was so near, and yet so
far away. And between these two flowed the silent river, dark and swift
on its way to the deep lake below.