that it was made more quickly. When the clearing was reached and the
doctor’s eyes were unbound he saw that there was no patch of light
beyond the low shanty. “Didn’t dare leave a lamp,” explained the man
with the scar as he cautiously opened the door. After he had peered in;
listening, he entered quietly and struck a match.
The sick man was on the floor, stretched prone. His eyes were wide, but
unseeing. His breathing was laboured.
They lifted him gently and laid him on the bed. Then the doctor, coat
off, once more began his ministering, while the man with the scar
seated himself on a bench by the door and smoked. The doctor paid
the other no attention, but apparently gave his whole thought to his
patient. Nevertheless, as he worked he kept on the alert for sounds,
and, when his back was turned toward his guard, examined the wall
against which stood the head of the bed.
He noticed that which made him certain that the shanty had a second, if
a very small, room. Two of the upright foot-wide boards of the wall had
been sawed across at a height of six feet from the floor. A few moments
later he purposely dropped the cork of a bottle. As he stooped to
feel about for it he gave a quick look at the lower ends of the sawed
boards. Unlike the others in the wall, they cleared the floor by half
an inch. It was probable that they formed a narrow, blind door; that
the wall itself was a partition. He determined to be certain about it.
“Fetch me some right cold water,” he said to the man with the scar.
For a moment the other remained seated and made no answer. Then, “All
right,” he said reluctantly and, picking up a square kerosene can that
had been fitted with a handle, went out.
The doctor waited, his eyes on his patient, his ears strained for the
sound of vanishing footsteps. He heard none. The other was doubtless
just outside, watching. The doctor walked to the table, took a square
of prepared plaster from his case and, having turned the light down a
little, laid the plaster upon the top of the globe.
The light went out. He stepped swiftly to the head of the bed and put a
hand against the blind door. It swung inward a foot or more, then back
into place again.
“Here!” The threatening voice was at the outside door, which opened and
closed with a bang. “What’re you trying to do?”
The doctor took one long stride in the direction of the speaker. “Got a
match?” he inquired innocently. “That blamed lamp went out.”
The other muttered and struck a match. When its light flashed the
doctor was standing beside the table, the square of plaster in one hand.
“You ’tend to business!” warned the man with the scar. His thin lips
were parted in a snarl.
“Now, look-a-here,” returned the doctor; “I’ve stood all the abuse
I’m goin’ to. There ain’t another physician in this county that would
a-came out here a second time with his eyes blinded and his hands
tied--not if you had _ten_ friends dyin’. And I expect you to show me
decent treatment.” He leaned forward across the table and looked the
other man squarely in the face.
“Last night you wanted hot water. To-night you want cold.”
“Wal, excuse me, but I’m the best judge of what the sick gent needs. If
I ain’t, why the dickens do you come after me?”
For the space of a minute they stood in silence, face to face. Then, as
if partly convinced, the man with the scar once more took up his oil
can. When his quick, shuffling steps had died away the doctor tried
another plan. He stooped over the sick man until his lips were close to
the crack that ran down the full length of the blind door, and began
to speak the name that the grief-crazed mother at the mine had spoken:
“Laurie! Laurie! Laurie!”
He listened. There was no sound within or without. He spoke again,
louder: “Laurie!”
First, a movement beyond the partition--a soft, rustling, creeping
movement. Then, close to the wall, a little, weak, long-drawn sob!
The doctor straightened, his heart pounding so furiously that it hurt
him, his face hot with the joy of his discovery. Smiling, he glanced
down.
He looked into a pair of startled eyes that were staring up at him.
“Who are you?” came the husky demand, and the sick man suddenly lifted
himself to an elbow, almost as if he were about to leap from the bed.
The doctor could only stare back. The man was conscious. Had he heard
him? What was to be done?
Before he could frame any course of action the man with the scar
entered.
“Your friend’s lots better,” announced the doctor, turning toward the
door. “Come and see.”
“That so?” The other crossed to the foot of the bed.
“Nick,” began the sick man, speaking with great effort, “don’t you
trust anybody. You get out of here. Do you understand? Never mind me.
I’m going to die. Look at my nails.” He put out a trembling hand.
“Don’t you worry,” answered the man with the scar. “The Doc came in
blindfolded.”
“You’re taking chances,” persisted the younger man. “Go--just--leave
me--water, and--a gun.” He sank back.
“You got to keep more quiet,” said the doctor. “Here.” He lifted a cup
to the dry lips.
When he left the bedside the man with the scar followed and leaned
close. “Bill’s going to die,” he said in a low voice. “Look at his
nails.”
Instead, the doctor looked at the speaker. There was a sinister light
in those little, alert eyes; a cruel twist to the thin mouth. And the
whole expression of the scarred face bespoke a sudden determination--a
fiendish determination. Bill was past saving. Soon the cabin would be
left behind. And the doctor--why let him go back to the town?
“He’s going to die,” repeated the man with the scar. “And you know it.”
“My friend,” answered the doctor, “I’ll tell you the truth. He ain’t
got more’n one chance in a hunderd--and that’s a pretty slim one. If he
ain’t better to-morrow I’ve got to operate.” He sat down.
The man with the scar sat down in front of him. The table was between
them. He leaned his arms on it. “Don’t take me for a fool,” he advised.
The doctor folded his arms. “Now, look a-here,” he retorted, smiling;
“don’t take _me_ for a fool. I know what’s the matter with you.”
At that the man with the scar rose so suddenly that his bench tipped
backward.
“Yas,” the doctor went on. “I know why you brung me here blindfolded
and what you’re hidin’.”
The right hand of the man with the scar stole to his hip.
The doctor ignored the action. He went on speaking with clear
directness: “You two fellers’ve located a gold mine. And you’ve got the
crazy idea that I’m a-goin’ to bring out a bunch of locators. Wal, git
over it. I’m not a prospector: I’m a doc.”
The hand on the weapon rested quiet. The man with the scar drew a
gasping breath. Then long and keenly he studied the face of the
doctor. After a time he dropped his arm, picked up his bench and
reseated himself.
Some little time passed. The doctor smoked and nursed a knee. Once
he got up to take the pulse of his patient and again to mark the
temperature. But his every movement was leisurely, and he showed
no wish to leave. The man with the scar sat, leaning on the table,
apparently lost in thought.
All at once he rose. “Well, come on,” he said.
Again the doctor examined the sick man. “This’ll be a bad day for your
friend,” he explained. “I’m leavin’ something to chase the pain.”
When they were ready to mount the other addressed him harshly. “Doc,”
he said, “if you and me run into anybody on our way back it’ll be you
that gets my first shot.”
“That’s a bargain,” answered the doctor good-naturedly.
But, riding out of the cañon, he felt far from confident. The previous
night his guide had led briskly. Now the mule was lagging. The doctor
found himself moving his body forward in his saddle to urge Bobby on.
They had gone only a small part of the way homeward when the mule came
to a stop. Bobby halted, too, and the doctor waited like a man who
expects a blow in the dark. He listened. The other did not dismount.
There was no audible movement ahead. But he felt that sinister face
turned upon him.
“Say, that friend of your’n has got a wonderful constitution,” he
remarked.
There was a short interval of silence. It seemed many minutes to the
doctor. Then, “Get up!” said the voice ahead.
Letty was waiting for him when he turned in at the corral gate, though
it was long past midnight. He had been under a severe strain, but she
had been under a greater. He saw that when he lifted the lantern she
brought him and looked into her face.
“Good news,” he told her, speaking low. “The baby’s there.”
Five minutes later he was back in his office once more and had Blue
Top on the telephone. “Come,” was his message. “I’ve got a clue, Mr.
Eastman. But don’t bring nobody with you.”
It seemed to him that he had only just lain down to rest when he was up
again, admitting Eastman, who had come as quick as a horse could carry
him. The father was more dishevelled than ever; and on his haggard,
unshaven face stood out the sweat of effort and anxiety. Three days of
agony had aged him.
“Oh, my boy!” were his first words.
“I know where he is, but I don’t know how to git there,” said the
doctor. Briefly he explained.
Eastman, half distracted, paced the floor as he listened. “Oh, tell
me what to do,” he cried when the doctor had finished. “My wife--it’s
killing her.”
“The medicine I left’ll keep the sick feller up till this evenin’.”
“I’ll follow you to-night, then. Oh, I must! I must! The boy’ll need
me. They dragged him over all those miles. Think of it! And wore out
his poor little legs.”
“We’ve got to go about this thing mighty careful,” warned the doctor.
“You trail me and somebody’ll be shot. Mebbe it’ll be me, mebbe it’ll
be your baby.”
The father halted before the younger man. “But how can you help him,”
he demanded, “with your hands tied?”
“Wal, I’ve thought of a scheme. The man that come after me searched me
for a pistol both nights. But he’s never looked into the oat-bag. So,
I’ll put a gun in that bag, and when I stand up from feedin’ Bobby I’ll
have the drop on him.”
“He may get you first. Then what? Oh, I’ll never see my boy again!”
“Wal, if you can think of a better way, go ahead.”
But at the end of an hour Eastman agreed with the doctor that there was
no better plan. “All right,” he said, “--all right--I’ll trust to you.
Now I must telephone my wife that there’s hope.”
When the doctor awoke early that afternoon it was to learn that Mrs.
Eastman had arrived and was at the hotel. Eastman himself called the
doctor up to announce her coming and the latter asked the parents to
remain secluded during the remainder of the day.
There was reason to believe that the kidnappers might have a
confederate on watch in the town.
But Eastman had no thought beyond the finding of his child. “Suppose
that sick man died to-day,” he said. “Won’t the other man leave and
take Laurie with him? Doctor, I think I ought to start fifty men out on
a search.”
The doctor opposed the suggestion. “Take my advice,” he urged kindly.
“Tell Mrs. Eastman to be brave.”
Eastman only groaned and hung up. But later on he telephoned again and
again, always with some fresh idea that was filling the heart of the
waiting mother with forebodings.
Letty telephoned, too. “Don’t go alone to-night,” she begged. “It’s too
dangerous.”
“I got to, Letty,” he declared. “If Eastman starts men out, which
way’ll they go? It might take ’em a week to find that shanty.”
Night settled early, for long before twilight the sky became heavily
overcast and a wind rose, sweeping the dust up in clouds as it drove
through the town, and auguring a rainstorm. The doctor placed a light
in his office, then took his station at a window in an unlighted front
room.
The minutes dragged. Eight o’clock struck, and nine.
“Mebbe that sick feller did die,” he said to Letty over the telephone.
“But----”
He hung up the receiver abruptly. There was a sound of galloping in the
street. It ceased at the gate, when heavy steps came hurrying to his
porch. It was the man with the scar.
“Doc,” he began, panting with his hard ride, “you said you’d
operate----”
“Ready in a jiffy,” answered the doctor, and turned away to pick up hat
and case.
The next instant there was a choking cry from the porch, then loud
curses and the sound of fierce scuffling. The doctor whirled.
The man with the scar was flat on his back at the threshold, his
wrists manacled, his shins ironed; over him stood a smooth-shaven,
thick-set, middle-aged man armed with a revolver--the man who had
halted the doctor on the Blue Top road; and Eastman was there.
“He stole my boy!” the father called out furiously. “I’m going to kill
him!” He flung himself forward.
The man with the revolver pushed him back. And, “No! No!” expostulated
the doctor. “Eastman! You’re makin’ a mistake!”
The prisoner gave a loud, hard laugh. “You bet your life he’s making a
mistake!” he declared.
“We got you just the same,” said the man with the revolver triumphantly.
“Put him on a horse,” ordered Eastman, maddened more than ever by the
taunting laugh. “He’ll take me to my boy or I’ll kill him.”
The captured man ignored the father. His look was on the doctor, and it
was full of hate. “Ah, h--l!” he exclaimed disgustedly. “I could kick
myself! Last night I had my finger on the trigger. But like a fool----”
Eastman was sobbing in baffled rage. “My baby!” he cried. “Four days
with this brute! Think of it!”
“No more monkey business.” The man with the revolver was speaking, and
he gave his prisoner a rough poke in the side with his boot. “You’re
in the hands of the Sheriff, and you’re going to take us out to that
cañon. We start right off.”
“No, we don’t,” was the answer. “You’ve trapped me, the three of you.
Send me up if you can. My word’s as good as this doctor’s, and I don’t
have to take you anywhere to hunt for evidence against me.”
“Get up,” commanded the sheriff. He unbuckled the irons from his
prisoner’s legs.
The man with the scar rose. “Nobody’ll ever find that cabin or what’s
in it,” he said doggedly. “And when Bill dies----”
“Oh, my God!” It was the father.
The doctor was leaning in the doorway. “What’d you do this for, Mr.
Eastman?” he asked.
The tears were streaming down Eastman’s face. “We thought the Sheriff
ought to come,” he faltered. “The boy’s mother is frantic. And this
seemed the surest way.” The doctor shook his head. “I’m afraid we’ve
lost our best chance,” he said.
“See here, Doc,” broke in the sheriff. “I made the capture. And I want
you to understand when we find the boy I’m entitled to the reward.”
The other turned astonished eyes upon him. “Reward?” he repeated.
“You mean to say you didn’t know there’s five thousand offered?”
“So that’s why you done this,” said the doctor, and shrugged his
shoulders. “You know, I’ve heerd tell of fellers that put their foot in
it. You’ve got your’n in plumb to the knee.”
“I’ll come out all right,” retorted the sheriff boastfully. “I’ll send
for dogs. There’s three in Sacramento. I can have ’em here in eighteen
hours.”
“If I don’t git to Bill,” said the doctor, “he’ll be dead before that.”
He looked at the man with the scar.
“Eighteen hours!” repeated Eastman miserably.
Now the sheriff advanced upon his prisoner. “You’re going to take me
to that cabin,” he said threateningly. “You don’t think so now, but I
can make you change your mind. Come along.” He seized his prisoner by a
shackled arm and jerked him toward the gate.
Eastman started after the two, pleading incoherently. But half-way to
the gate he stopped. A girl blocked the walk. It was Letty.
“Depend on the doctor,” she said. “He took his life in his hands to
find the boy. He was going to risk it again to bring him to you. And he
didn’t even know there was a reward.”
Eastman turned and went stumbling back.
“But he doesn’t know the way,” he protested. “He said he didn’t.”
In answer, the doctor took his arm and led him down the street to the
wide gate opening into Bobby’s corral. “I’ll have a horse here for you
in a minute,” he said. “I’ll ride this one. You see, there’s another
scheme. But it really don’t depend on me--it depends on this little
bronc.”
When Bobby was saddled and bridled Letty put her cheek against his soft
nose. “Do your best,” she whispered; and to his rider: “Don’t fail.”
The doctor took both her hands in his. “I’m a-goin’ to make it,” he
declared. “Stay with the boy’s maw, little gal, till we come.”
Bobby was eager to be off, pawing as the doctor mounted and backing
in a circle when his rider held him in to wait for Eastman. The reins
loosened, the little horse sprang forward at a brisk canter, leading
the way out of town.
It was at the forks of the road that the first halt was made. Here the
doctor, having first tied the bridle reins to his pommel assumed the
exact position in the saddle that he had twice been compelled to take,
and laid his hands on his saddle-horn.
“Now, Bobby,” he said, touching the mustang gently with his heels,
“here we are. Go on.”
Bobby moved forward, but hesitatingly, and, when he had gone a few
steps, stopped, looking about him.
Again the doctor urged him kindly. “Want your supper, Bobby? Come, now.”
The little horse made forward at a brisk walk then, travelling straight
south along the road that followed the track. Presently, however, he
turned sharply to the right and entered the brush.
“Do you think he’s going right?” called out Eastman anxiously.
“Wal,” answered the doctor, “he acts like he means business. You see,
for two days I ain’t give him a bite to eat except when he was out
yonder in that cañon.”
Bobby was taking a westward course that was almost at right angles to
the road he had just come down. He wound through scrubby liveoaks and
bristling chaparral, evidently along no path. Behind him the other
horse had to be urged constantly, for the undergrowth was heavy and
hung across the way. But soon the brush parted to leave a straight,
open track, so narrow, however, that it seemed only a path. The doctor
got down and lit a match. They were on a trail that showed recent use.
Upon it, stamped plainly in the dust, were the round, eastward-pointing
hoofprints of a mule.
“Are we right?” asked Eastman.
“So far.”
Now both horses were pushed to a canter--until the path grew rough and
steep. The doctor recognised this descent and listened for the sound
of the rushing stream he had crossed both times under the guidance of
the man with the scar. When the stream was washing the hoofs of their
horses the doctor reached out to lay a hand on Eastman’s shoulder.
“My friend, we’re half-way!”
Eastman would have pressed ahead then, but the doctor would not permit
it.
“Leave it to Bobby,” was his counsel. “Mr. Nick didn’t blindfold Bobby.”
The path ascended the long slope of a hogback. Pine needles covered
the slope, and though the doctor dismounted a half-dozen times no path
could be seen. But each time, as he stepped into the saddle again, the
little horse went forward eagerly.
The hogback ended abruptly. Bobby turned to the left. The trip had
seemed so short that now, as the doctor looked into the darkness below
him, he could scarcely credit his senses.
“Eastman,” he said. “See below there!”
It was a spot of light.
From then on it was a wild ride. The horses did not leave the steep
path; but they stumbled, slid or scrambled for a footing down the whole
of the black descent. The doctor kept his eyes on the light. Eastman,
divided between joy and fear, shouted out frenziedly toward the nearing
shanty.
At the edge of the clearing both men flung themselves out of their
saddles, then ran. Eastman led. And as he entered the low door he
still hoarsely called: “Laurie! Laurie! Laurie!”
A faint cry answered. It came from beyond the bed, on which lay a quiet
form. The doctor reached to shove at the boards forming the blind door.
They gave, disclosing a small inner room.
The next moment a little figure in soiled rompers came out of the
darkness of the room, toddling unsteadily on bare legs, for the baby
stockings were down over worn sandals. Fair hair hung uncombed about a
face that was pitifully thin and streaked by tears and dust. The doctor
lifted the boy up and swung him out, and the father spread his arms to
receive him and caught the child to his breast.
The doctor laid back the rumpled covers of the bed then. “Bill,” he
said kindly, and began to unbuckle the strap of his case.
“So that’s the other one.” It was Eastman, on his knees, the child
clasped tight.
The doctor laid back the bedcovers very gently. “It _was_ the other
one,” he answered.
* * * * *
Midnight, and the lost boy was in his mother’s arms, with Eastman
hovering beside the two, and the doctor across from him, sitting on his
heels, with a baby hand in his big, gentle grasp.
“Doctor, we’ll never be able to make it up to you,” said the father. “I
don’t feel that the reward is half enough. But I want you to accept it
with our lifelong gratitude.” They were in Mrs. Eastman’s sitting-room
at the hotel. Her husband crossed to a desk.
The doctor stood up, colouring bashfully. “Aw, I can’t take money for
findin’ the little feller,” he protested; and when Eastman came back,
holding out a slip of paper to him, he shook his head decidedly. “No,
sir, I just can’t,” he declared. Letty entered then, carrying a tray
hidden under a napkin. He hastened across the room to take it from her.
“We’ll see about this later on,” answered Eastman. “You must accept it.
And there’s another thing I want to offer. You know, Doctor Fowler’s
been up from San Francisco to look over the Blue Top position. But he
won’t suit. Do you think he’s been worrying about the finding of my
boy? Not a bit of it. He’s been worrying for fear the bungalow wouldn’t
be big enough to please his wife. There’s one thing I didn’t realise
the other day, Doc. What we need is a physician that doesn’t put on
so much style--the kind of a man that can meet any emergency, you
understand--take a horse over a trail if it’s necessary.”
“Yas?” returned the doctor. The tray was still in his hands. And now
it began to tremble so that there was a faint clink of glass. He stood
looking down at it.
“In fact,” went on Eastman, “we need a doctor like you at the mine.”
The doctor raised his eyes to the girl standing at Mrs. Eastman’s side.
And he saw that there was a look of great happiness on her face, like
the happiness on the face of the young mother.
“Blue Top!” he said. Then: “Letty, do _you_ think the little shingled
house is too small?”
THE BOOMERANG
When darkness settled a figure began to follow Patton--a tall,
ungainly, heavy-shouldered figure. It shadowed him down the single
street of the desert town to the depot, where he bought two tickets
and checked two beribboned trunks; it lurked at his heels when he went
back along the dirt sidewalk to Conley’s restaurant, the largest of the
score of unpainted pine shacks that made up Searles. The restaurant
faced the single track of the railroad line, and as Patton ate his
supper, the figure stood on the ties, quiet and watchful. When Patton
left the restaurant for the barber-shop farther along the street, it
moved parallel with him, and took up its station outside a front window
of the place.
Patton entered the shop hurriedly and dropped into the only chair.
He was a man of, perhaps, forty, with black hair that was brushed
away slickly from a narrow forehead, and black eyes set deep and near
together. His nose was long and sharply pointed. His mouth was too
full for his lean jaws, which gave his cheeks the appearance of being
constantly sucked in. But he was far from ill-looking. And when he got
out of the barber’s chair presently, fresh-shaven, there was a healthy
glow to his dark skin under its trace of powder.
He arranged a spotless collar and a fresh tie, settled his soft hat
on his carefully combed hair, adjusted his coat before a mirror, and
went out. The figure moved with him, going toward the depot once more.
A building beyond the station was brightly lighted. Patton made toward
it, walking fast and whistling. The figure walked faster than he--until
it was almost at his heels.
“Patton!”
Patton halted. “Hello,” he returned cheerily. “Who is it?”
The figure halted. “It’s Jeff Blandy,” was the answer.
“Oh.” The tone showed displeasure. Patton backed away a step. “Well,
what can I do for you?”
Blandy did not reply at once. Then, “You can’t do nothin’ for _me_,” he
said. “I just want to say a word or two about--Polly Baker.”
“Yes?” inquired Patton impatiently. “Well, hurry up. The ceremony’s at
nine-thirty. The west-bound goes through at eleven.”