The Winds of Chance Part 31

"Dis gal--she's tiny s...o...b..rd wit' broken wing. Bien! I fix her wing de bes' I can. I mak' her well an' I teach her to fly again.

Dat's all." Broad and Bridges had listened attentively, their faces impa.s.sive. Lucky was the first to speak.

"Letty's a good girl, y'understand. She's different to these others--"

'Poleon interrupted with a gesture of impatience. "It ain't mak'

no difference if she's good or bad. She's seeck."

"Me 'n' the Kid have done some heavy thinkin', an' we'd about decided to get a high stool and take turns lookin' out Letty's game, just to see that her bets went as they laid, but I got a hunch you're a square guy. What D'YOU think, Kid?"

Mr. Bridges nodded his head slowly. "I got the same hunch. The point is this," he explained. "We can't very well throw the Countess--we got some of her outfit--and, anyhow, we'd be about as handy around an invalid as a coupla cub bears. I think we'll bow out. But, Frenchy"--the gambler spoke with intense earnestness-- "if ever we hear a kick from that gal we'll--we'll foller you like a track. Won't we, Lucky?"

"We'll foller him to h.e.l.l!" Mr. Broad feelingly declared.

Gravely, ceremoniously, the callers shook hands with Doret, then they returned whence they had come. They went their way; Rouletta's delirium continued; 'Poleon's problem increased daily; meanwhile, however, the life of the North did not slacken a single pulse-beat.

Never since their earliest a.s.sociations had Tom Linton and Jerry Quirk found themselves in such absolute accord, in such complete harmony of understanding, as during the days that immediately followed their reconciliation. Each man undertook to outdo the other in politeness; each man forced himself to be considerate, and strove at whatever expense to himself to lighten the other's burdens; all of their relations were characterized by an elaborate, an almost mid-Victorian courtesy. A friendly rivalry in self-sacrifice existed between them; they quarreled good-naturedly over the dish-was.h.i.+ng, that disgusting rite which tries the patience of every grown man; when there was wood to be cut they battled with each other for the ax.

But there is a limit to politeness; unfailing suns.h.i.+ne grows tedious, and so does a monotonous exercise of magnanimity.

While it had been an easy matter to cut their rowboat in two, the process of splicing it together again had required patience and ingenuity, and it had resulted in delay. By the time they arrived at Miles Canon, therefore, the season was far advanced and both men, without knowing it, were in a condition of mind to welcome any sort of a squall that would serve to freshen the unbearably stagnant atmosphere of amiability in which they were slowly suffocating.

Here for the first time the results of their quarrel arose to embarra.s.s them; they could find no pilot who would risk his life in a craft so badly put together as theirs. After repeated discouragements the partners took counsel with each other; reluctantly they agreed that they were up against it.

"Seems like I've about ruined us," Mr. Quirk acknowledged, ruefully.

"You? Why, Jerry, it was my fault we cut the old s.h.i.+p in two," Mr.

Linton declared.

The former speaker remonstrated, gently. "Now, Tom, it's just like you to take the blame, but it was my doin's; I instigated that fratricidal strife."

Sweetly but firmly Linton differed with his partner. "It ain't often that you're wrong, Jerry, old boy--it ain't more than once or twice in a lifetime--but you're wrong now. I'm the guilty wretch and I'd ought to hang for it. My rotten temper--"

"Pshaw! You got one of the nicest dispositions I ever see--in a man. You're sweeter 'n a persimmon. I pecked at you till your core was exposed. I'm a thorn in the flesh, Tom, and folks wouldn't criticize you none for doin' away with me."

"You're 'way off. I climbed you with my spurs--"

"Now, Tom!" Sadly Mr. Quirk wagged his gray head. "I don't often argue with anybody, especially with you, but the d.a.m.nable idea of dividin' our spoils originated in my evil mind and I'm goin' to pay the penalty. I'll ride this white-pine outlaw through by myself. You ear him down till I get both feet in the stirrups, then turn him a-loose; I'll finish settin' up and I won't pull leather."

"How you talk! Boats ain't like horses; it'll take a good oarsman to navigate these rapids--"

"Well?" Quirk looked up quickly. "I'm a good oarsman." There was a momentary pause. "Ain't I?"

Mr. Linton hastily remedied his slip of the tongue. "You're a bear!" he a.s.serted, with feeling. "I don't know as I ever saw a better boatman than you, for your weight and experience, but-- there's a few things about boats that you never had the chance to pick up, you being sort of a cactus and alkali sailor. For instance, when you want a boat to go 'gee' you have to pull on the 'off' oar. It's plumb opposite to the way you steer a horse."

"Sure! Didn't I figger that out for the both of us? We 'most had a runaway till I doped it out."

Now this was a plain perversion of fact, for it was Tom who had made the discovery. Mr. Linton was about to so state the matter when he reflected that doubtless Jerry's intentions were honest and that his failing memory was to blame for the misstatement. It was annoying to be robbed of the credit for an important discovery, of course, but Tom swallowed his resentment.

"The point is this," he said, with a resumption of geniality.

"You'd get all wet in them rapids, Jerry, and--you know what that means. I'd rather take a chance on drowning myself than to nurse you through another bad cold."

It was a perfectly sincere speech--an indirect expression of deep concern that reflected no little credit upon the speaker's generosity. Tom was exasperated, therefore, when Jerry, by some characteristic process of crooked reasoning, managed to misinterpret it. Plaintively the latter said:

"I s'pose I AM a handicap to you, Tom. You're mighty consid'rate of my feelin's, not to throw it up to me any oftener than you do."

"I don't throw it up to you none. I never did. No, Jerry, I'll row the boat. You go overland and keep your feet dry."

"A lot of good that would do." Mr. Quirk spoke morosely. "I'd starve to death walkin' around if you lost the grub."

This struck Tom Linton as a very narrow, a very selfish way of looking at the matter. He had taken no such view of Jerry's offer; he had thought less about the grub than about his partner's safety. It was an inconsiderate and unfeeling remark. After a moment he said:

"You know I don't throw things up to you, Jerry. I ain't that kind." Mr. Quirk stirred uneasily. "You didn't mean to say that, did you?"

What Jerry would have answered is uncertain, for his attention at the moment was attracted by a stranger who strode down the bank and now accosted him and his partner jointly.

"Bonjour, m'sieu's!" said the new-comer. "I'm lookin' for buy some lemon'. You got some, no?"

Mr. Quirk spoke irritably. "Sure. We've got a few, but they ain't for sale."

The stranger--Quirk remembered him as the Frenchman, Doret, whom he had seen at Sheep Camp--smiled confidently.

"Oh yes! Everyt'ing is for sale if you pay 'nough for him," said he.

Now this fellow had broken the thread of a conversation into which a vague undertone of acrimony was creeping--a conversation that gave every indication of developing into an agreeable and soul- satisfying difference of opinion, if not even into a loud and free-spoken argument of the old familiar sort. To have the promise of an invigorating quarrel frustrated by an idiotic diversion concerning lemons caused both old men to turn their pent-up exasperation upon the speaker.

"We've got use for our lemons and we're going to keep them," said Tom. "We're lemon-eaters--full of acid--that's us."

"We wouldn't give lemon aid to n.o.body." Jerry grinned in malicious enjoyment of his own wit.

"You got how many?" 'Poleon persisted.

"Oh, 'bout enough! Mebbe a dozen or two."

"I buy 'em. Dere's poor seeck lady--"

Tom cut in brusquely. "You won't buy anything here. Don't tell us your troubles. We've got enough of our own, and poverty ain't among the number."

"W'at trouble you got, eh? Me, I'm de trouble man. Mebbe I fix 'em."

Sourly the partners explained their difficulty. When 'Poleon understood he smiled again, more widely.

"Good! I mak' bargain wit' you, queeck. Me, I'm pilot of de bes'

an' I tak' your boat t'rough for dose lemon'."

The elderly men sat up; they exchanged startled glances.

"D'you mean it?"

"I'm goin' have dose lemon'."