PATIENCE
There is one patience greater than the endurance of the cat at the hole
of the mouse or the wolf which waits for the moose to drop, and that is
the patience of the thinking man; the measure of the Hindoo's moveless
contemplation of Nirvana is not in hours but in weeks or even in months.
Randall Byrne sat at his sentinel post with his hands folded and his
grave eyes steadily fixed before him, and for hour after hour he did not
move. Though the wind rose, now and again, and whistled through the
upper chambers or mourned down the empty halls, Randall Byrne did not
stir so much as an eyelash in observance. Two things held him
fascinated. One was the girl who had passed up yonder stairs so wearily
without a single backward glance at him; the other was the silent battle
which went on in the adjoining room. Now and then his imagination
wandered away to secondary pictures. He would see Barry meeting Buck
Daniels, at last, and striking him down as remorselessly as the hound
strikes the hare; or he would see him riding back towards Elkhead and
catch a bright, sad vision of Kate Cumberland waving a careless adieu to
him, and then hear her singing carelessly as she turned away. Such
pictures as these, however, came up but rarely in the mind of Byrne.
Mostly he thought of the stranger leaning over the body of old Joe
Cumberland, reviving him, storing him with electric energy, paying back,
as it were, some ancient debt. And he thought of the girl as she had
turned at the landing place of the stairs, her head fallen; and he
thought of her lying in her bed, with her arm under the mass of bright
hair, trying to sleep, very tired, but remorsely held awake by that same
power which was bringing Joe Cumberland back from the verge of death.
It was all impossible. This thing could not be. It was really as bad as
the yarn of the Frankenstein monster. He considered how it would seem in
print, backed by his most solemn asseverations, and then he saw the
faces of the men who associated with him, pale thoughtful faces striving
to conceal their smiles and their contempt. But always he came back,
like the desperate hare doubling on his course, upon the picture of Kate
Cumberland there at the turning of the stairs, and that bent, bright
head which confessed defeat. The man had forgotten her. It made Byrne
open his eyes in incredulity even to imagine such a thing. The man had
forgotten her! She was no more to him than some withered hag he might
ride past on the road.
His ear, subconsciously attentive to everything around him, caught a
faint sound from the next room. It was a regular noise. It had the
rhythm of a quick footfall, but in its nature it was more like the
sound of a heavily beating pulse. Randall Byrne sat up in his chair. A
faint creaking attested that it was, indeed, a footfall traversing the
room to and fro, steadily.
The stranger, then, no longer leaned over the couch of the old
cattleman. He was walking up and down the floor with that
characteristic, softly padding step. Of what did he think as he walked?
It carried Byrne automatically out into the darkest night, with a wind
in his face, and the rhythm of a long striding horse carrying him on to
a destination unknown.
Here he heard a soft scratching, repeated, at the door. When it came
again he rose and opened the door--at once the tall, shaggy dog slipped
through the opening and glided past him. It startled Byrne oddly to see
the animal stealing away, as if Barry himself had been leaving. He
called to the beast, but he was met by a silent baring of white fangs
that stopped him in his tracks. The great dog was gone without a sound,
and Byrne closed the door again without casting a look inside. He was
stupidly, foolishly afraid to look within.
After that the silence had a more vital meaning. No pictures crowded his
brain. He was simply keyed to a high point of expectancy, and therefore,
when the door was opened silently, he sprang up as if in acknowledgment
of an alarm and faced Barry. The latter closed the door behind him and
glided after the big dog. He had almost crossed the big room when Byrne
was able to speak.
"Mr. Barry!" he called.
The man hesitated.
"Mr. Barry," he repeated.
And Dan Barry turned. It was something like the act of the wolf the
moment before; a swift movement--a flash of the eyes in something like
defiance.
"Mr. Barry, are you leaving us?"
"I'm going outside."
"Are you coming back?"
"I dunno."
A great joy swelled in the throat of Doctor Byrne. He felt like shouting
in triumph; yet he remembered once more how the girl had gone up the
stairs, wearily, with fallen head. He decided that he would do what he
could to keep the stranger with them, and though Randall Byrne lived to
be a hundred he would never do a finer thing than what he attempted
then. He stepped across the room and stood before Barry, blocking the
way.
"Sir," he said gravely, "if you go now, you will work a great sorrow in
this house."
A glint of anger rose in the eyes of Barry.
"Joe Cumberland is sleepin' soun'," he answered. "He'll be a pile rested
when he wakes up. He don't need me no more."
"He's not the only one who needs you," said Byrne. "His daughter has
been waiting impatiently for your coming, sir."
The sharp glance of Barry wavered away.
"I'd kind of like to stay," he murmured, "but I got to go."
A dull voice called from the next room.
"It's Joe Cumberland," said Byrne. "You see, he is not sleeping!"
The brow of Barry clouded, and he turned gloomily back.
"Maybe I better stay," he agreed.
Yet before he made a step Byrne heard a far-away honking of the wild
geese, that musical discord carrying for uncounted miles through the
windy air. The sound worked like magic on Barry. He whirled back.
"I got to go," he repeated.
And yet Byrne blocked the way. It required more courage to do that than
to do anything he had ever attempted in his life. The sweat poured out
from under his armpits as the stranger stepped near; the blood rushed
from his face as he stared into the eyes of Barry--eyes which now held
an uncanny glimmer of yellow light.
"Sir," said Byrne huskily, "you must not go! Listen! Old Cumberland is
calling to you again! Does that mean nothing? If you have some errand
out in the night, let me go for you."
"Partner," said the soft voice of Barry, "stand aside. I got no time,
I'm wanted!"
Every muscle of Randall Byrne's body was set to repulse the stranger in
any effort to pass through that door, and yet, mysteriously, against his
will, he found himself standing to one side, and saw the other slip
through the open door.
"Dan! Are ye there?" called a louder voice from the room beyond.
There was no help for it. He, himself, must go back and face Joe
Cumberland. With a lie, no doubt. He would say that Dan had stepped out
for a moment and would be back again. That might put Cumberland safely
to sleep. In the morning, to be sure, he would find out the
deception--but let every day bury its dead. Here was enough trouble for
one night. He went slowly, but steadily enough, towards the door of what
had now become a fatal room to the doctor. In that room he had seen his
dearest doctrines cremated. Out of that room he had come bearing the
ashes of his hopes in his hands. Now he must go back once more to try to
fill, with science, a gap of which science could never take cognizance.
He lingered another instant with his hand on the door; then he cast it
wide bravely enough and stepped in. Joe Cumberland was sitting up on the
edge of his couch. There was colour in the old man's face. It almost
seemed, to the incredulous eyes of Byrne, that the face was filled out a
trifle. Certainly the fire of the old cattleman's glance was less
unearthly.
"Where's Dan?" he called. "Where'd he go?"
It was no longer the deep, controlled voice of the stoic; it was the
almost whining complaint of vital weakness.
"Is there anything I can do for you?" parried Byrne. "Anything you need
or wish?"
"Him!" answered the old man explosively. "Damn it, I need Dan! Where is
he? He was here. I _felt_ him here while I was sleepin'. _where is he?_"
"He has stepped out for an instant," answered Byrne smoothly. "He will
be back shortly."
"He--has--stepped--out?" echoed the old man slowly. Then he rose to the
full of his gaunt height. His white hair, his triangle of beard and
pointed moustache gave him a detached, a mediaeval significance; a
portrait by Van Dyck had stepped from its frame.
"Doc, you're lyin' to me! Where has he gone?"
A sudden, almost hysterical burst of emotion swept Doctor Byrne.
"Gone to heaven or hell!" he cried with startling violence. "Gone to
follow the wind and the wild geese--God knows where!"
Like a period to his sentence, a gun barked outside, there was a howl of
demoniac pain and rage, and then a scream that would tingle in the ear
of Doctor Randall Byrne till his dying day.