MAJOR ALLEN BARNES, M.D., PH.D.--AND SIM GAGE
Sim Gage's reflections kept him wandering about for the space of an
hour or two in the open air.
"I'll tell you," said he, after a time to Mrs. Jensen, who once more
had cared for their household needs, "I reckon I'll go on down to the
dam, on the mail coach this evening. You go in and tell her, won't
you? Say I can't noways get back before to-morrow. I got to see about
one thing and another. She'll understand."
Therefore, when the mail wagon came down the valley an hour later, Sim
Gage was waiting for it at the end of his own lane. He had meantime
arrayed himself cap-a-pie in all the new apparel he recently had
purchased, so that he stood now reeking of discomfort, in his new hat,
his new shoes, his tight collar. Evidently something of formal
character was in his plans.
It was well toward midnight when the leisurely mail wagon arrived at
the end of its semi-weekly round and put up at the Company works. At
that hour the company doctor was not visible, so Sim found quarters
elsewhere. It was a due time after breakfast on the following morning
before he ventured to the doctor's office.
Doctor Barnes himself was engaged in bringing up his correspondence.
He was his own typist, and at the time was engaged in picking out
letter after letter upon a small typewriter with which he had not yet
acquired familiarity. He was occupied with two letters of importance.
One was going to a certain medical authority of the University from
which he himself had received his degree. It contained a certain
hypothetical question regarding diseases of the eye, upon which he
himself at the time did not feel competent to pass.
The second letter was one to his new Chief, an officer of the
reclamation engineers, at Washington. He wore again to-day the uniform
of a Major of the Army. The wheels of officialdom were revolving. The
public quality of this enterprise was well understood. That lawless
elements were afoot in that region was a fact also well recognized. To
have this dam go out now would be an injury to the peace measures of
the country. Soldiers were coming to protect it, and the soldiers must
have a commander. In the hurried times of war, when there was not
opportunity always for exactness, majors were made overnight when
needful out of such material as the Government found at hand. It might
have used worse than that of Allen Barnes to-day and here.
"Oh, there _you_ are," said he at length, turning around and finding
Sim Gage standing in the door. "What brought you down here? Anything
gone wrong?"
"Well, I ain't sure, Doc," said Sim Gage, "but like enough. One thing,
my knee hurts me considerable." In reality he was sparring for time.
"But you're dressed up for a soldier?"
"Yes. Sit down there on the operating chair," said Doctor Barnes,
tersely. "We'll look it over. Anything happen to it?"
"Why, nothing much," said Sim. "I hurt it a little when I was getting
in the mail wagon yesterday evening--busted her open. So last night,
when I was going to bed, I took a needle and thread and sewed her up
again."
"What's that? Sewed it up?"
"Yes, I got a needle and some black patent thread. Do you reckon
she'll hold all right now, Doctor?"
Doctor Barnes was standing, scissors in hand, about to rip open the
trouser leg.
"No, you don't!" said Sim. "Them's my best pants. You just go easy
now, and don't you cut them none a-tall. Wait till I take 'em off."
The doctor bent over the wounded member. "You put in a regular
button-hole stitch," said he, grinning, "didn't you? About three
stitches would have been plenty. You put in about two dozen--and with
black thread! Like enough poisoned again."
"Well," said Sim, "I didn't want to take no chances of her breaking
open again."
The doctor was busy, removing the stitches, and with no gentle hand
this time made the proper surgical suture. "Leave it alone this way,"
said he, "and mind what I tell you. Seems like you can't kill a man
out in this country. You can do things in surgery out here that you
wouldn't dare tackle back in France, or in the States. I suppose,
maybe, I could cut your head off, for instance."
"I wish't you would," said Sim Gage. "She bothers me sometimes."
After a pause he continued, "I been thinking over a heap of things.
You see, I'm busted about flat. If I could go on and put up some hay,
way prices is, I could make some money this fall, but them damn robbers
has cleaned me, and I can't start with nothing. And I ain't got
nothing. So there I am."
He vouchsafed nothing more, but had already said so much that Doctor
Barnes sat regarding him quietly.
"Gage," said he after a time, "things might be better in this valley.
I know that you'll stick with the Government. Now, listen. I'm going
to have practical command here from this time on. This is under Army
control. I'm going to run a telephone wire up the valley as far as
your settlement. I'll appoint you a government special scout, to watch
that road. If these ruffians are in this valley again we want to catch
them."
"You think I could be any use that way, Doc?" said Sim.
"Yes, I've got to have some of the settlers with me that I can depend
on, besides the regular detail ordered in here."
"Would I be some sort of soldier, too, like?" demanded Sim Gage. "I
tried to get in. They wouldn't take me. I'm--I'm past forty-five."
"You'd be under orders just like a soldier."
"Would I have any sort of uniform, like, now?"
Doctor Barnes sat thinking for some time. "No," said he. "You have to
pass an examination before you really get into the Army; and you're
over age, you and Wid, both of you. But I'll tell you--I'll give you a
hat--you shall have a hat with a cord on it, so you'll be like a
soldier. We'll have a green service cord on it,--say green with a
little white in it, Sim Gage? Don't that make you feel as if you were
in a uniform?"
"Now that'd sure be fine, Doc, a hat like that," said Sim. "I sure
would like that. And I certainly would try to do what was right."
Doctor Barnes, still sitting before the little white operating table
where his surgical instruments lay, was looking thoughtful. "In all
likelihood I shall have to put a corporal and four men up at your
place. That means they'll have to have a house. I can commandeer some
of the teams down here, and some men, and they'll all throw in together
and help you build an extra cabin. You and they can live in that, I
suppose?"
"I reckon we could," said Sim Gage. "That'd be fine, wouldn't it?"
"And as those men would need horses for their own transport, they'd
need hay. We'd pay you for hay. I don't see why we couldn't leave one
wagon and a team at least up there, to get in supplies. That would
help you in getting things started around on your place again, wouldn't
it?"
"Would it, Doc?" said Sim Gage, brightening immensely. "It would raise
a _load_ offen me, that's what it would! Right now, especial." He
cleared his throat.
"That there brings me right around to what I come down here to talk
about," said he with sudden resolution. "For instance, there was a
letter come to her up there--from back where she lived--from Annie
Squires. So her and me got to talking over that letter, you see."
"What did Annie Squires say, if it's any of my business?" said the
Doctor, looking at him steadily.
"Well, I was just talking things over, that way, and we allowed that
maybe Annie Squires could come out here--after--well, after the
_wedding_, you see."
It was out! Sim Gage wiped off his brow.
"The wedding?"
"Why, one thing and other, her and me got to talking things over.
Things couldn't run on; so we--we fixed it up."
"Gage," said Doctor Barnes suddenly, "I've got to talk to you."
"Well, all right, all right, Doc. That'll be all right. I wish't you
would."
"See here, man. Don't you realize what that woman is? She's too good
for men like you and me."
"Yes, Doc. But I wouldn't never raise hand nor voice to her, the least
way in the world. I allowed she could live along as my housekeeper,
but seems not. You can shoot me, Doc, if you don't think I'm a-doing
the right thing by her in every way, shape and manner."
"She's too _good_--it's an impossible thing."
Sim Gage's face was lifted, seriously. "Doc, you know mighty well
that's true, and so do I--she's plumb too good for me. But it ain't me
done all the thinking."
"Didn't you ask her about it?"
"It kind of come around."
Doctor Barnes rose and paced rapidly up and down within the narrow
confines of his office. "You _do_ love her, don't you?"
Sim Gage for the first time in his life felt the secret quick of his
simple, sensitive soul cut open and exposed to gaze. Not even the
medical man before him could fail of sudden pity at witnessing what was
written on his face---all the dignity, the simplicity, the reticence,
all the bashfulness of a man brought up helplessly against the knife.
He could not--or perhaps would not--answer such a question even from
the man before him, whom he suddenly had come to trust and respect as a
being superior to himself.
But Allen Barnes was the pitiless surgeon now. "I don't care a damn
about you, of course, Gage. You're not fit for her to wipe her shoes
on, and you know it. But _she_ can't see it and doesn't know it. If
she could see you--what do you suppose she'd think? Gage--_she mustn't
ever know_!"
Sim Gage looked at him quietly. "Every one of them words you said to
me, Doc, is plumb true, and it ain't enough. I told her my own self,
that first day, and since then, it was a blessing she was blind. But
look-a-here, I reckon you don't understand how things is. You say
you're going to build a house up there, and help me get a start.
That's fine. Because hers is the other one, my old house. I wish't I
could get some sheets and pillow cases down here while I'm right here
now--I'd like to fix her up in there better'n what she is. I'd even
like to have a tablecloth, like. But you understand, that's for _her_,
not me. That's _her_ house, and not mine. She can't see. It's a
God's blessing she can't. And what you said is so--she mustn't _ever_
know, not now ner no time, what--Sim Gage really is."
Doctor Barnes' voice was out of control. He turned once more to this
newly revealed Sim Gage, a man whom he had not hitherto understood.
"Marriage means all sorts of things. It covers up things, begins
things, ends things. That's true."
"It ends things for her, Doc--it don't begin nothing fer me, you
understand. It is, but it isn't. I'd never step a foot across that
door sill, night or day--you understand that, don't you? You didn't
think _that_ for one minute, did you? You didn't think I was so
low-down I couldn't understand a thing like _that_, did you? It's
because she's blind and don't know the truth; and because she's plumb
up against it. That's why."
"Oh, damn you!" said Doctor Barnes savagely. "You understand me better
than I did you. Yes--it's the only way."
"It sure is funny how funny things get mixed up sometimes, ain't it,
Doc?" remarked Sim Gage. "But now, part of my coming down here was
about a minister."
"Well," said Doctor Barnes, desperately, feeling that he was party to a
crime, "it's priest day next Sunday. We have five or six different
sorts of priests and ministers that come in here once a month, and they
all come the same Sunday, so they can watch each other--every fellow is
afraid the other fellow will get some souls saved the wrong way if he
isn't there on the job too. Listen, Gage--I'll bring one of these
chaps--Church of England man, I reckon, for he hasn't got much to do
down here--up to your ranch next Sunday morning. We've got to get this
over with, or we'll all be crazy--I will, anyhow. When I show up, you
two be ready to be married.
"Does that go, Sim Gage?" he concluded, looking into the haggard and
stubbly face of the squalid-figured man before him.
"It goes," said Sim Gage.