Claim Number One Part 45

she requested, as she felt that he was about to speak.

"If I thought only of myself, of a refuge for others and myself, then I would not count the penalty which would attach to you to provide it. But unless we win the Governor's fee, my dear, dear soul, don't you see how impossible it will be for us to carry out even the most modest of our fond schemes?"

"Not at all," he protested.

"It would drag you back to where you were before, only leaving you with a greater burden of worry and expense," she continued, unheeding. "I was rapt, I was deadened to selfish forgetfulness by the sweet music of those dreams. I am awake now, and I tell you that you must not do it, that I shall never permit you to ruin your life by a.s.suming a load which will crush you."

"Agnes, the chill of the night is in your heart," said he. "I will not listen to such folly! Tomorrow, when the sun s.h.i.+nes, it will be the same as yesterday. I have it all arranged; you can't change it now."

"Yes. You took charge of me in your impetuous generosity, and I was thoughtless enough to interpose no word. But I didn't mean to be selfish. Please remember above it all that I didn't mean to be selfish."

"I have it all arranged," he persisted stubbornly, "and there will be no turning back. Tomorrow it will not look so gloomy to you. Now, you'd better go to bed."

He rose as he spoke, gave her his hand, and helped her to her feet. As they stood face to face Agnes placed her hand upon his shoulder gravely.

"I am in sober earnest about this, Doctor," said she. "We must not go on with any more planning and dreaming. It may look as if I feared the future with you for my own sake, putting the case as I do, all dependent on the winning of that fee. But you would not be able to swim with the load without that. It would sink you, and that, too, after you have fought the big battle and won new courage and hope, and a new vision to help you meet the world. Unless we weather the crisis, I must ride away alone."

"I'd be afraid of the future without you; it would be so bleak and lonesome," said he simply. He gave her good night before her tent.

"And for that reason," said he, carrying on his thought of a minute before, "we must weather the crisis like good sailormen."

CHAPTER XXI

THE CRISIS

Brave words are one thing, and inflammation in a gunshot wound is another. Infection set up in Jerry Boyle's hurt on the day after that which the doctor had marked as the critical point in his battle for life.

Dr. Slavens was of the opinion that the bullet had carried a piece of clothing into the wound, which it was not able to discharge of itself.

An operation for its removal was the one hope of saving the patient, and that measure for relief was attended by so many perils as to make it very desperate indeed.

The doctor viewed this alarming turn in his patient with deep concern, not so much out of sympathy for the sufferer and his parents, perhaps, as on his personal account. The welfare of Jerry Boyle had become the most important thing in life to him, for his own future hinged on that as its most vital bearing.

Agnes was firm in her adherence to the plan of procedure which she had announced. She declared that, as matters stood, she would not become a burden, with all her enc.u.mbrances, upon his slender resources. If mischance wrested the promised fee out of his hands, then they must go their ways separately. She repeated her determination to abide by that on the morning when Dr. Slavens announced the necessity of the operation.

Slavens was hurt and disappointed. It seemed that his faith in her suffered a blighting frost.

"In plain words," he charged, "you will refuse to marry me because I am poor."

"There's no other way to put it," she admitted. "But I refuse only out of my boundless esteem and tenderness for you and your success. I am putting down happiness when I do this, and taking up an additional load of pain. But what peace or self-respect would ever be mine again if I should consent to add the burden of two helpless old people to what you will have to carry on your own account?"

"My back is broad enough to be Atlas to your little world," he declared.

"But there's no use strangling success," she argued. "It can't be many years, at the longest, until time and nature relieve my tottering charges of their dependence on me. If you would care to wait, and if I might not be too old----"

"If there's nothing better for it, then we'll wait," he cut in almost sharply. "Do you remember how I showed you to hold that cone?"

She had consented to a.s.sist him in the operation to the extent of keeping the patient under the ether after he had administered it.

"This way," said she, placing the cotton-filled paper cone over the nostrils.

From the physician's standpoint, the operation was entirely successful.

A successful operation, as the doctor defines it, means that the doctor gets what he starts after. Frequently the patient expires during the operation, but that does not subtract anything from the sum of its success.

In the case of Jerry Boyle the matter wore a brighter aspect all around.

The doctor found the bit of coat-lining which the bullet had carried in with it, and removed it. The seat of inflammation was centered around it, as he had foreseen, and the patient was still alive, even though the greater part of the day had pa.s.sed since the tormenting piece of cloth was removed.

The camp was hushed in the depression of despair. Until that day they had heard Mrs. Boyle's hopeful voice cheering her husband, upon whom the foreboding of disaster seemed to weigh prophetically. Sometimes she had sung in a low voice as she watched beside her son. But now her courage seemed to have left her, and she sat in the tent with the Governor, huddled like two old tempest-beaten birds hiding under a frail shelter which could not s.h.i.+eld them from the last bitter blow. They had given the care of their son over to the doctor and Agnes entirely, watching their coming and going with tearful eyes, waiting for the word that would cut the slender stay of hope.

On the afternoon of the second day after the operation, Agnes entered the tent and looked across the patient's cot into Dr. Slavens' tired eyes. He shook his head, holding the sufferer's wrist, his finger on the fluttering pulse. It seemed to Agnes that Boyle had sunk as deep into the shadow of the borderland as human ever penetrated and drew breath.

From all appearances he was dead even that moment, and the solemn shake of the head with which the doctor greeted her seemed to tell her it was the end.

She went to her own tent and sat in the sun, which still fell hot and bright. The Governor and his wife had let down the flap of their tent, as if they could no longer bear the pain of watching. Tears came into Agnes' eyes as she waited there in the wreckage of so many human hopes; tears for the mother who had borne that unworthy son, but whose heart was tender for him as if his soul had been without a stain; tears for the old man whose spirit was broken, and tears for herself and her own dreams, and all the tender things which she had allowed to spring within her breast.

After a long time Dr. Slavens came out of the hospital-tent and let the flap down after him. The sun was striking long, slanting shadows across the barrens; the fire was dying out of its touch. Agnes' heart sank as she saw the doctor draw away a little distance, and then turn and walk a little beat, back and forth, back and forth, his head bowed, his hands clasped behind him in an att.i.tude of thorough disappointment and deep gloom. She got up and went to him, a feeling that all was over.

"Never mind," she consoled, lifting her tear-streaked face to meet his haggard look. "You've lost, but I have come to tell you that it makes no difference between us. We will go on with our life together as we planned it; we will take up our dreams."

"Agnes, you have come in good time," said he, lifting his hand to his forehead wearily.

"I am not n.o.ble enough to sacrifice my happiness for your good," she continued. "I am too weak and common, and womanly frail for that. I cannot carry out my brave resolution, now that you've lost. We will go away together, according to your plan, and I will live by your plan, always and forever."

"You have come in good time--in good time," said he again, as one speaking in a daze.

Then he drew her to his breast, where her head lay fair and bright, her straying hair, spread like a shattered sunbeam, lifting in the young wind that came from the hills beyond the river.

There she rested against the rock of his strength, his hand caressing her wild tresses, the quiver of her sobbing breast stirring him like a warm and quickening draught.

"You did well to come and tell me this," said he, "for, as I love you, my dear, dear woman, I would not have had you on the other terms. But I have not lost. Jerry Boyle has emerged from the shadow. He will live."

After that day when his adventuring soul strayed so near the portal which opens in but one direction, Boyle's recovery was rapid. Ten days later they loaded him into a wagon to take him to Comanche, thence to his father's home by rail.

Young Boyle was full of the interest of life again, and his stock of audacity did not appear to be in the least diminished by his melancholy experience. He treated Dr. Slavens on the footing of an old friend, and if there was any shame in his heart at his past behavior toward Agnes, his colorless cheeks did not betray it.

With the exception of one flying visit to the capital city of the state, Governor Boyle had remained in camp faithfully since the day of the tragedy. But the slow days in those solitudes were galling to his busy mind once the safety of his boy's life was a.s.sured. He became in a measure dictatorial and high-handed in his dealings with the doctor, and altogether patronizing.

Dr. Slavens considered his duty toward the patient at an end on the morning when they loaded him into the spring wagon to take him to Comanche. He told the Governor as much.

"He'll be able to get up in a few days more," said the doctor, "and inside of a month he'll be riding his horse as if daylight never had been let through him."

Governor Boyle took this announcement as the signal for him to produce his checkbook, which he did with considerable ostentation and flourish.

"How much did you expect to get out of this pile of rocks?" he asked the doctor, poising his fountain-pen over the page.