It was with an effort that Houston gave no indication that he had
heard. Before, there had been only suspicions, one flimsy clue leading
to another, a building-block process, which, in its culmination, had
determined Barry to take a trip into the West to see for himself. He
had believed that it would be a long process, the finding of a certain
telegram and the possibilities which might ensue if this bit of
evidence should turn out to be the thing he had suspected. He had not,
however, hoped to have from the lips of the man himself a confession
that conditions were not right at the lumber mill of which Barry
Houston now formed the executive head; to receive the certain statement
that somewhere, somehow, something was wrong, something which was
working against the best interests of himself and the stern necessities
of the future. But now--
Thayer had turned away and evidently sought a chair at the other side
of the room. Barry remained perfectly still. Five minutes passed.
Ten. There came no sound from the chair; instinctively the man on the
bed knew that Thayer was watching him, waiting for the first flicker of
an eyelid, the first evidence of returning consciousness. Five minutes
more and Barry rewarded the vigil. He drew his breath in a shivering
sigh. He turned and groaned,--quite naturally with the pain from his
splintered arm. His eyes opened slowly, and he stared about him, as
though in non-understanding wonderment, finally to center upon the
window ahead and retain his gaze there, oblivious of the sudden tensity
of the thin-faced Thayer. Barry Houston was playing for time, playing
a game of identities. In the same room was a man he felt sure to be an
enemy, a man who had in his care everything Barry Houston possessed in
the world, every hope, every dream, every chance for the wiping out of
a thing that had formed a black blot in the life of the young man for
two grim years, and a man who, Barry Houston now felt certain, had not
held true to his trust. Still steadily staring, he pretended not to
notice the tall, angular form of Fred Thayer as that person crossed the
brightness of the window and turned toward the bed. And when at last
he did look up into the narrow, sunken face, it was with eyes which
carried in them no light of friendship, nor even the faintest air of
recognition. Thayer put forth a gnarled, frost-twisted hand.
"Hello, kid," he announced, his thin lips twisting into a cynical smile
that in days gone by had passed as an affectation. Barry looked
blankly at him.
"Hello."
"How'd you get hurt?"
"I don't know."
"Old Man Renaud here says you fell over the side of Two Mile Hill. He
picked you up about six o'clock this morning. Don't you remember?"
"Remember what?" The blank look still remained. Thayer moved closer
to the bed and bending, stared at him.
"Why, the accident. I'm Thayer, you know--Thayer, your manager at the
Empire Lake mill."
"Have I a manager?"
The thin man drew back at this and stood for a moment staring down at
Houston. Then he laughed and rubbed his gnarled hands.
"I hope you've got a manager. You--you haven't fired me, have you?"
Barry turned his head wearily, as though the conversation were ended.
"I don't know what you are talking about."
"You--don't--say, you're Barry Houston, aren't you?"
"I? Am I?"
"Well, then, who are you?"
The man on the bed smiled.
"I'd like to have you tell me. I don't know myself."
"Don't you know your name?"
"Have I one?"
Thayer, wondering now, drew a hand across his forehead and stood for a
moment in disconcerted silence. Again he started to frame a question,
only to desist. Then, hesitatingly, he turned and walked to the door.
"Ba'tiste."
"Ah, _oui_!"
"Come in here, will you? I'm up against a funny proposition. Mr.
Houston doesn't seem to be able to remember who he is."
"Ah!" Then came the sound of heavy steps, and Barry glanced toward the
door, to see framed there the gigantic form of a grinning, bearded man,
his long arms hanging with the looseness of tremendous strength, his
gray eyes gleaming with twinkling interest, his whole being and build
that of a great, good-humored, eccentric giant. His beard was
splotched with gray, as was the hair which hung in short, unbarbered
strands about his ears. But the hint of age was nullified by the cocky
angle of the blue-knit cap upon his head, the blazing red of his
double-breasted pearl-buttoned shirt, the flexible freedom of his
muscles as he strode within. Beside him trotted a great gray
cross-breed dog, which betokened collie and timber wolf, and which
progressed step by step at his master's knee. Close to the bed they
came, the great form bending, the twinkling, sharp eyes boring into
those of Houston, until the younger man gave up the contest and turned
his head,--to look once more upon the form of the girl, waiting
wonderingly in the doorway. Then the voice came, rumbling, yet
pleasant:
"He no remember, eh?"
"No. I know him all right. It's Barry Houston--I've been expecting
him to drop in most any day. Of course, I haven't seen him since he
was a kid out here with his father--but that doesn't make any
difference. The family resemblance is there--he's got his father's
eyes and mouth and nose, and his voice. But I can't get him to
remember it. He can't recall anything about his fall, or his name or
business. I guess the accident--"
"Eet is the--" Ba'tiste was waving one hand vaguely, then placing a
finger to his forehead, in a vain struggle for a word. "Eet is
the--what-you-say--"
"Amnesia." The answer had come quietly from the girl. Ba'tiste turned
excitedly.
"Ah, _oui_! Eet is the amnesia. Many time I have seen it--" he waved
a hand--"across the way, _ne c'est pas_? Eet is when the mind he will
no work--what you say--he will not stick on the job. See--" he
gesticulated now with both hands--"eet is like a wall. I see eet with
the shell shock. Eet is all the same. The wall is knock down--eet
will not hold together. Blooey--" he waved his hands--"the man he no
longer remember!"
This time the stare in Barry Houston's eyes was genuine. To hear a
girl of the mountains name a particular form of mental ailment, and
then to further listen to that ailment described in its symptoms by a
grinning, bearded giant of the woods was a bit past the comprehension
of the injured man. He had half expected the girl to say "them" and
"that there", though the trimness of her dress, the smoothness of her
small, well-shod feet, the air of refinement which spoke even before
her lips had uttered a word should have told him differently. As for
the giant, Ba'tiste, with his outlandish clothing, his corduroy
trousers and high-laced, hob-nailed boots, his fawning, half-breed dog,
his blazing shirt and kippy little knit cap, the surprise was all the
greater. But that surprise, it seemed, did not extend to the other
listener. Thayer had bobbed his head as though in deference to an
authority. When he spoke, Barry thought that he discerned a tone of
enthusiasm, of hope:
"Do they ever get over it?"
"Sometime, yes. Sometime--no. Eet all depend."
"Then there isn't any time limit on a thing like this."
"No. Sometime a year--sometime a week--sometime never. It all depend.
Sometime he get a shock--something happen quick, sudden--blooey--he
come back, he say 'where am I', and he be back again, same like he was
before!" Ba'tiste gesticulated vigorously. Thayer moved toward the
door.
"Then I guess there's nothing more for me to do, except to drop in
every few days and see how he's getting along. You'll take good care
of him?"
"Ah, _oui_."
"Good. Want to walk a piece down the road--with me, Medaine?"
"Of course. It's too bad, isn't it--"
Then they faded through the doorway, and Barry could hear no more. But
he found himself looking after them, wondering about many
things,--about the girl and her interest in Fred Thayer, and whether
she too might be a part of the machinery which he felt had been set up
against him; about the big, grinning Ba'tiste, who still remained in
the room; who now was fumbling about with the bedclothes at the foot of
the bed and--
"Ouch! Don't--don't do that!"
Barry suddenly had ceased his thoughts to jerk his feet far up under
the covers, laughing and choking and striving to talk at the same time.
At the foot of the bed, Ba'tiste, his eyes twinkling more than ever,
had calmly rolled back the covering and just as calmly tickled the
injured man's feet. More, one long arm had outstretched again, as the
giant once more reached for the sole of a foot, to tickle it, then to
stand back and boom with laughter as Barry involuntarily sought to jerk
the point of attack out of the way. For a fourth time he repeated the
performance, followed by a fourth outburst of mirth at the recoil from
the injured man. Barry frowned.
"Pardon me," he said rather caustically. "But I don't get the joke."
"Ho, ho!" and Ba'tiste turned to talk to the shaggy dog at his side.
"_L'enfant_ feels it! _L'enfant_ feels it!"
"Feel it," grunted Houston. "Of course I feel it! I'm ticklish."
"You hear, Golemar?" Ba'tiste, contorted with merriment, pointed
vaguely in the direction of the bed, "M'sieu l' Nobody, heem is
ticklish!"
"Of course I'm ticklish. Who isn't, on the bottom of his feet?"
The statement only brought a new outburst from the giant. It nettled
Houston; further, it caused him pain to be jerking constantly about the
bed in an effort to evade the tickling touch of the trapper's big
fingers. Once more Ba'tiste leaned forward and wiggled his fingers as
if in preparation for a new assault, and once more Barry withdrew his
pedal extremities to a place of safety.
"Please don't," he begged. "I--I don't know what kind of a game you're
playing--and I'm perfectly willing to join in on it when I feel
better--but now it hurts my arm to be bouncing around this way. Maybe
this afternoon--if you've got to play these fool games--I'll feel
better--"
The thunder of the other man's laugh cut him off. Ba'tiste was now, it
seemed, in a perfect orgy of merriment. As though weakened by his
laughter, he reeled to the wall and leaned there, his big arms hanging
loosely, the tears rolling down his cheeks and disappearing in the gray
beard, his face reddened, his whole form shaking with series after
series of chuckles.
"You hear heem?" he gasped at the wolf-dog. "M'sieu l' Nobody, he will
play with us this afternoon! M'sieu l' Ticklefoot! That is heem, my
Golemar, M'sieu l' Ticklefoot! Oh, ho--M'sieu l' Ticklefoot!"
"What in thunder is the big idea?" Barry Houston had lost his reserve
now. "I want to be a good fellow--but for the love of Mike let me in
on the joke. I can't get it. I don't see anything funny in lying here
with a broken arm and having my feet tickled. Of course, I'm grateful
to you for picking me up and all that sort of thing, but--"
Choking back the laughter, Ba'tiste returned to the foot of the bed and
stood wiping the tears from his eyes.
"Pardon, _mon ami_," came seriously at last. "Old Ba'teese must have
his joke. Listen, Ba'teese tell you something. You see people here
today, _oui_, yes? You see, the petite Medaine? Ah, _oui_!" He
clustered his fingers to his lips and blew a kiss toward the ceiling.
"She is the, what-you-say, fine li'l keed. She is the--_bon bébé_!
You no nev' see her before?"
Barry shook his head. Ba'tiste went on.
"You see M'sieu Thayer? _Oui_? You know heem?"
"No."
"You sure?"
"Never saw him before."
"So?" Batiste grinned and wagged a finger, "Ba'teese he like the
truth, yes, _oui_. Ba'teese he don't get the truth, he tickle M'sieu's
feet."
"Now listen! Please--"
"No--no!" The giant waved a hand in dismissal of threat. "Old
Ba'teese, he still joke. Ba'teese say he tell you something. Eet is
this. You see those people? All right. _Bon_--good. You don' know
one. You know the other. Yes? _Oui_? Ba'teese not know why you do
it. Ba'teese not care. Ba'teese is right--in here." He patted his
heart with a big hand. "But you--you not tell the truth. I know. I
tickle your feet."
"You're crazy!"
"So, mebbe. Ba'teese have his trouble. Sometime Ba'teese wish he go
crazy--like you say."
The face suddenly aged. The twinkling light left the eyes. The big
hands knitted, and the man was silent for a long moment. Then, "But
Ba'-teese he know--see?" He pointed to his head, then twisting, ran
his finger down his spine. "When eet is the--what-you-say,
amnesia--the nerve eet no work in the foot. I could tickle, tickle,
tickle, and you would not know. But with you--blooey--right away, you
feel. So, for some reason, you are, what-you-say?--shamming. But you
are Ba'teese' gues'. You sleep in Ba'teese' bed. You eat Ba'teese'
food. So long as that, you are Ba'teese' friend. Ba'teese--" he
looked with quiet, fatherly eyes toward the young man on the
bed--"shall ask no question--and Ba'teese shall tell no tales!"