It happened so strangely, so quickly, that Con gave himself no time
to think. They had been trailing a caribou, just for sport, for the
hunting season was closed, and Con struck into the wrong trail on the
return journey. Thinking to overtake the others, he worked his cayuse
hard, galloping on and on until the hills and canyons began to look
unfamiliar. Feeling that he was lost, he fired his gun, once, twice.
Far down in the valley came a response, so he loped down the winding
trail until he suddenly came upon a little shack surrounded by fields
of alfalfa, and a few cattle grazing along a creek.
As he neared the ranch a shot was fired from the shack window, he jerked
his animal up shortly, and was about to wheel and gallop back, when a
pitiful groan reached his ears, and a man's voice begged: "Water, water,
for the love of heaven bring me water!" Then, unfamiliar as Con was to
Western life, instinct told him that the revolver shot was meant to call
him to some one's aid.
"Coming," he shouted, slipping from his saddle, "buck up, I'll fetch
water," but before he could enter the door, a terrible, repulsive face
was lifted to the window, and the man almost shrieked:
"Don't come in, don't, I say; just hand me some water from the creek.
I'm too weak to walk."
"Of course I'm coming in," blurted Con, indignantly. "Why, man, you're
dead sick!"
"Don't!" choked the man; "oh, boy, don't come near me, _I've got
smallpox_."
For one brief second Con stood, stiff with horror. "Who's with you,
helping you, nursing you?" he demanded.
"No one, I'm alone, alone; oh! water, water," moaned the man.
Con flung open the door. There was no hesitation, no fear, no thought of
self; just a great human pity in his fair young face, and a wonderful
tenderness in his strong young arms as he lifted the loathsome sufferer
from the floor where he had fallen in his weakness, after crawling to
the window in that last, almost hopeless effort to call assistance.
On the soiled and tumbled bed he laid the man, who still shrieked: "Go
away, go away, you're crazy to come in here!" Then without a word of
even kindly encouragement the boy seized a bucket and dashed down to
the creek. "It's water, not words, he wants now," he said to himself,
running back, and in another moment his good right arm was slipping
under the sick man's shoulders, and he was lifting him up and holding
to the fever-cracked lips a cup of gloriously cold water.
"Bless you! The dear good God himself bless you! But, oh, boy, go away,
go away!" murmured the man, weakly.
"Go away and leave you here alone, perhaps to die? And then have to face
my parents and Banty and The Eena, and--and England again and tell what
I've done? Not I!" cried the boy, indignantly. "Look at this shack, the
state it's in; look at you. How did you come to be here alone?"
"I had a pardner, but he left me, just skinned out, when he suspected
what I had," said the man, hopelessly. It was then that Con burst forth
in that quick flashing English temper that was always aroused at the
sight of injustice, of unmanliness, or of underhand dealings. He was
so furious that he took his temper out in cleaning up the shack, and
cooking some soft foods for the patient, and every time the wretched man
begged him to go away he got so indignant and abusive that the sick one
finally laughed outright, thereby lifting them both out of the depths of
grey despair.
"That's the way, 'Snooks,'" commented Con. (He had nicknamed his
shack-mate "Snooks.") "Just you laugh, it will do you no end of good,
don't you know."
But in spite of his heroic attempts at cheering up the sick man, Con
was undergoing a frightful experience. In the first place, there were
practically no medicines and no disinfectants in the shack. The boy
found a cake of tar soap, a bottle of salts, and a package of sulphur.
The latter he burnt daily, sprinkling it on a shovel of coals. The tar
soap was a blessing both to himself and the patient, and the salts they
both swallowed manfully and daily. There was rice, oatmeal, tapioca,
jam, tinned stuffs and prunes, and Con knew as little of cookery as he
knew of nursing, but he made shift with the little store in hand. Snooks
kept alive and the boy remained well. But the nights were long periods
of horror. Snooks would become delirious with fever, and the torture of
the foul disease would become unbearable.
Once they had an out-and-out fight. Snooks, fever crazed, struggled to
get out of bed, crying that he was going to sink his agonized body in
the creek, and Con gripped the poor abhorrent wrists, forcing the man
to his back. Then flinging his whole weight above the prostrate body he
held him by sheer force, conquering and saving this life which had no
claims on him except that of all common humanity. An onlooker would have
thought that the dread disease had no horrors for the boy, but Con was
only human, and many a time he fought it out with himself when the
terrors of the threatened infection were upon him. Then he would say
to himself, "Con, are you going to try and be a gentleman through your
whole life, or just be a cad?" Then all thought of quitting would
vanish, and back he would go to the shack, to be rewarded by a wonderful
look of dog-like gratitude that would shine in Snooks' festered eyes,
replacing the haunting fear that always lurked there whenever the boy
remained outside any length of time--the fear that Con, too, had gone,
as had his "pardner," leaving him forever alone.
"Don't you get scared," Con would say on these occasions. "I'm with you
to the finish for good or ill, and it will be for good, I think."
"It sure is for _my_ good," Snooks had said once. "If I pull out of this
I'll be another man, and it will be owing to having known you, pard. I
had forgotten that such bravery and decency and unselfishness existed.
I had--"
"Oh, quit it! Stop it!" Con smiled. "This isn't anything--don't you
know." But Snooks shook his head thoughtfully, muttering, "I _do_ know,
and you're making another man of me."
One day, after two weeks had dragged wearily past wherein no human being
had passed up the unfrequented trail, Con heard gun shots, distant at
first, then nearing the shack. Like a wild being he sprang to the door,
hoping some range rider, chancing by, would at least bring food and a
doctor, when, to his horror, he saw Banty riding by, almost exhausted,
peering to right and left of the trail, searching--searching, he well
knew, for his lost cousin. Con made a rapid bolt for a hiding place, but
Banty, whose quick eyes had caught sight of the fleeting figure, gave a
yell of delight as he leaped from his saddle.
"Don't you come _near_ this place! Get out, _get_ out, I tell you!"
screamed Con, while Banty stood as if petrified, staring wide-eyed at
his seemingly insane cousin.
"You come near here and I'll trim you within an inch of your life," Con
roared anew, shaking his fist menacingly. "I'll trim you the way I did
the fellow who sent me the blue ribbon for my hair. We've got smallpox
here. I'm looking after a chap who is down with it. Get us a doctor and
beef tea and more tar soap and food, but don't you come an inch nearer,
Banty, _don't_. Think of aunt and the people at the ranch. You can't do
any good, and I'll go clean crazy if you expose yourself to this. Oh,
Banty, get out of this, get out of this, or, I tell you, _honest_, I'll
lick you if you don't."
Banty was no coward, but Con looked terrifyingly fierce and in dead
earnest, and the boy's common sense told him that he could far better
serve these stricken shackmen in doing as he was bidden. So after
more explanations and instructions, he mounted and rode away like one
possessed, Con's last words ringing in his ears: "Don't forget _barrels_
of tar soap, and _tons_ of tea. I haven't had a drink of tea for ten
days."
Late that night a young doctor rode up from Kamloops, and in his wake
a professional nurse with supplies of food, medicines, and exquisitely
fresh, clean sheets. While the physician bent over the sick man, Con
seized a package of groceries and in five minutes was drinking a cup of
his beloved English tea, as calmly as if he had been nursing a friend
with a headache.
Presently the doctor beckoned him outside. Con put down his cup
regretfully and followed.
"Young man," said the doctor, eyeing him curiously, "Do you know who
this man is you've been nursing, exposing yourself to death for?"
"Haven't an idea; I call him 'Snooks,'" said Con.
"Much better call him 'Crooks,'" said the doctor, angrily. "You've been
risking your life and that pretty pink English skin of yours for one of
the most worthless men in British Columbia; he's been a cattle rustler,
a 'salter' of gold mines, and everything that is discreditable; it makes
me indignant. He tells me he at least had the decency to warn you, when
you came here. What ever made you come on--in?"
Con stared at the doctor, a cold, a "stony British" stare. "Why,
doctor," he said, "because Snooks has been a--a--failure, I don't see
that's any reason why I should be a cad."
The doctor looked at him hard. "I wish I had a son like you," he
remarked.
"My father is an army surgeon; he's been through the cholera scourge in
India twice. I never could have looked him in the face again if I hadn't
seen Snooks through," said Con, simply.
"Well, you can look him in the face now all right, boy!" the doctor
replied, gravely. "Say good-bye to your sick friend, for we've brought a
tent and you are to be soaked in disinfectants and put into quarantine.
No more of this pest-shack for you, my boy."
So Con went back to shake hands with "Snooks," who said very quietly: "I
can't even say 'Thank you,' as I want to; I guess the best way to thank
a pard is to live it, not speak it. I ain't said a prayer for years till
the day you came here, and I've prayed night and day, _real_ prayers,
that you wouldn't get this disease. Maybe that'll show you, pard, that
I've started to be a new man."
"Yes, that shows," answered Con confidentially, and with another
handclasp, he left for his little tent, with a great faith in his heart
that the sick man's prayers would be answered.
At last one joyous day the doctor sent for Banty, who rode over with a
led horse, and Con, leaping into the saddle, waved good-bye to Snooks,
who, now convalescent, stood in the door of the distant shack. As the
boy galloped off up the trail, Snooks turned to the nurse and said:
"I'm going to live so that youngster will never regret what he's done.
That's about the only reward I can give him."
The nurse looked up gravely. "If I have estimated that boy right," she
said, "I think that's about the only reward he would care to have."
That was a great night at the ranch. Most delicious things to eat and
drink awaited Con after his long isolation, and Mr. and Mrs. Clark
welcomed him as if he had been a son instead of a nephew. The range
riders came in, each one getting him to tell of his antics with the
sulphur and shovel of coals, over which they roared with laughter.
Banty's delight at having his comrade back from danger knew no bounds,
and when The Eena appeared Banty flung an arm about Con's shoulders,
exclaiming: "Isn't this old chap a splendid King Georgeman, Eena?"
The old hunter replied with much self-satisfaction: "Maybe now you not
think old Indian saying so queer. Did I not say, me, that narrow,
thin--what you name it,--nostril, shows man that is brave, man that has
no fear? Me sabe now. He _not_ 'bally.'"