It was a long time after O'Connor had gone before Kent at last fell
asleep. It was a slumber weighted with the restlessness of a brain
fighting to the last against exhaustion and the inevitable end. A
strange spirit seemed whirling Kent back through the years he had
lived, even to the days of his boyhood, leaping from crest to crest,
giving to him swift and passing visions of valleys almost forgotten, of
happenings and things long ago faded and indistinct in his memory.
Vividly his dreams were filled with ghosts--ghosts that were
transformed, as his spirit went back to them, until they were riotous
with life and pulsating with the red blood of reality. He was a boy
again, playing three-old-cat in front of the little old red brick
schoolhouse half a mile from the farm where he was born, and where his
mother had died.
And Skinny Hill, dead many years ago, was his partner at the
bat--lovable Skinny, with his smirking grin and his breath that always
smelled of the most delicious onions ever raised in Ohio. And then, at
dinner hour, he was trading some of his mother's cucumber pickles for
some of Skinny's onions--two onions for a pickle, and never a change in
the price. And he played old-fashioned casino with his mother, and they
were picking blackberries together in the woods, and he killed over
again a snake that he had clubbed to death more than twenty years ago,
while his mother ran away and screamed and then sat down and cried.
He had worshiped that mother, and the spirit of his dreams did not let
him look down into the valley where she lay dead, under a little white
stone in the country cemetery a thousand miles away, with his father
close beside her. But it gave him a passing thrill of the days in which
he had fought his way through college--and then it brought him into the
North, his beloved North.
For hours the wilderness was heavy about Kent. He moved restlessly, at
times he seemed about to awaken, but always he slipped back into the
slumberous arms of his forests. He was on the trail in the cold, gray
beginning of Winter, and the glow of his campfire made a radiant patch
of red glory in the heart of the night, and close to him in that glow
sat O'Connor. He was behind dogs and sledge, fighting storm; dark and
mysterious streams rippled under his canoe; he was on the Big River,
O'Connor with him again--and then, suddenly, he was holding a blazing
gun in his hand, and he and O'Connor stood with their backs to a rack,
facing the bloodthirsty rage of McCaw and his free-traders. The roar of
the guns half roused him, and after that came pleasanter things--the
droning of wind in the spruce tops, the singing of swollen streams in
Springtime, the songs of birds, the sweet smells of life, the glory of
life as he had lived it, he and O'Connor. In the end, half between
sleep and wakefulness, he was fighting a smothering pressure on his
chest. It was an oppressive and torturing thing, like the tree that had
fallen on him over in the Jackfish country, and he felt himself
slipping off into darkness. Suddenly there was a gleam of light. He
opened his eyes. The sun was flooding in at his window, and the weight
on his chest was the gentle pressure of Cardigan's stethoscope.
In spite of the physical stress of the phantoms which his mind has
conceived, Kent awakened so quietly that Cardigan was not conscious of
the fact until he raised his head. There was something in his face
which he tried to conceal, but Kent caught it before it was gone. There
were dark hollows under his eyes. He was a bit haggard, as though he
had spent a sleepless night. Kent pulled himself up, squinting at the
sun and grinning apologetically. He had slept well along into the day,
and--
He caught himself with a sudden grimace of pain. A flash of something
hot and burning swept through his chest. It was like a knife. He opened
his mouth to breathe in the air. The pressure inside him was no longer
the pressure of a stethoscope. It was real.
Cardigan, standing over him, was trying to look cheerful. "Too much of
the night air, Kent," he explained. "That will pass away--soon."
It seemed to Kent that Cardigan gave an almost imperceptible emphasis
to the word "soon," but he asked no question. He was quite sure that he
understood, and he knew how unpleasant for Cardigan the answer to it
would be. He fumbled under his pillow for his watch. It was nine
o'clock. Cardigan was moving about uneasily, arranging the things on
the table and adjusting the shade at the window. For a few moments,
with his back to Kent, he stood without moving. Then he turned, and
said:
"Which will you have, Kent--a wash-up and breakfast, or a visitor?"
"I am not hungry, and I don't feel like soap and water just now. Who's
the visitor? Father Layonne or--Kedsty?"
"Neither. It's a lady."
"Then I'd better have the soap and water! Do you mind telling me who it
is?"
Cardigan shook his head. "I don't know. I've never seen her before. She
came this morning while I was still in pajamas, and has been waiting
ever since. I told her to come back again, but she insisted that she
would remain until you were awake. She has been very patient for two
hours."
A thrill which he made no effort to conceal leaped through Kent. "Is
she a young woman?" he demanded eagerly. "Wonderful black hair, blue
eyes, wears high-heeled shoes just about half as big as your hand--and
very beautiful?"
"All of that," nodded Cardigan. "I even noticed the shoes, Jimmy. A
very beautiful young woman!"
"Please let her come in," said Kent. "Mercer scrubbed me last night,
and I feel fairly fit. She'll forgive this beard, and I'll apologize
for your sake. What is her name?"
"I asked her, and she didn't seem to hear. A little later Mercer asked
her, and he said she just looked at him for a moment and he froze. She
is reading a volume of my Plutarch's 'Lives'--actually reading it. I
know it by the way she turns the pages!"
Kent drew himself up higher against his pillows and faced the door when
Cardigan went out. In a flash all that O'Connor had said swept back
upon him--this girl, Kedsty, the mystery of it all. Why had she come to
see him? What could be the motive of her visit--unless it was to thank
him for the confession that had given Sandy McTrigger his freedom?
O'Connor was right. She was deeply concerned in McTrigger and had come
to express her gratitude. He listened. Distant footsteps sounded in the
hall. They approached quickly and paused outside his door. A hand moved
the latch, but for a moment the door did not open. He heard Cardigan's
voice, then Cardigan's footsteps retreating down the hall. His heart
thumped. He could not remember when he had been so upset over an
unimportant thing.