The Eagle's Heart Part 38

The doctor briskly administered a narcotic as being the easiest and simplest way to handle a patient who seemed friendless and penniless.

"The man is simply delirious with fever. He looks like a man emaciated from lack of food. What do you know about him?"

The landlord confessed he knew but little.

The doctor resumed: "Of course you can't attend to him here. I'll inform the hospital authorities at once. Meanwhile, communicate with his friends if you can. He'll be all right for the present."

This valuable man was hardly gone before a lively young fellow with a smoothly shaven, smiling face slipped in. He went through every pocket of Harold's clothing, and found a torn envelope with the name "Excell"

written on it, and a small photo of a little girl with the words, "To Mose from Cora." The young man's smile became a chuckle as he saw these things, and he said to himself: "Nothing here to identify him, eh?"

Then to the landlord he said; "I'm from The Star office. If anything new turns up I wish you'd call up Harriman, that's me, and let me in on it."

The hospital authorities were not informed, or paid no attention to the summons, and Harold was left to the care of the chambermaid, who did her poor best to serve him.

The Star next morning contained two columns of closely printed matter under the caption, "Black Mose, the Famous Dead Shot, Dying in a West Side Hotel. After Years of Adventure on the Trail, the Famous Desperado Succ.u.mbs to Old John Barley Corn." The article recounted all the deeds which had been ascribed to Harold and added a few entirely new ones. His marvelous skill with the revolver was referred to, and his defense of the red men and others in distress was touched upon so eloquently that the dying man was lifted to a romantic height of hardihood and gallantry. A fancy picture of him took nearly a quarter of a page and was surrounded by a corona of revolvers each spouting flame.

Mrs. Raimon seated at breakfast in the lofty dining room of her hotel, languidly unfolded The Star, gave one glance, and opened the paper so quickly and nervously her cup and saucer fell to the floor.

"My G.o.d! Can that be true? I must see him." As she read the article she carried on a rapid thinking. "How can I find him? I must see that reporter; he will know." She was a woman of decision. She arose quickly and returned to her room. "Call a carriage for me, quick!" she said to the bell boy who answered to her call. "No name is given to the hotel, but The Star will know. Good Heavens! if he should die!" Her florid face was set and white as she took her seat in the cab. "To The Star office--quick!" she said to the driver, and there was command in the slam of the door.

To the city editor she abruptly said: "I want to find the man who wrote this article on 'Black Mose.' I want to find the hotel where he is."

The editor was enormously interested at once. "Harriman is on the night force and at home how, but I'll see what I can do." By punching various bells and speaking into mysteriously ramifying tubes he was finally able to say: "The man is at a little hotel just across the river. I think it is called the St. Nicholas. It isn't a nice place; you'd better take some one with you. Mind you, I don't vouch for the truth of that article; the boy may be mistaken about it."

Mrs. Raimon turned on her heel and vanished. She had her information and acted upon it. She was never finer than when she knelt at Harold's bedside and laid her hand gently on his forehead. She could not speak for a moment, and when her eyes cleared of their tears and she felt the wide, dry eyes of the man searching her, a spasm of pain contracted her heart.

"He don't know me!" she cried to the slatternly maid, who stood watching the scene with deep sympathy.

Harold spoke petulantly: "Go away and tell Mary I want her. It costs too much for her to sing, or else she'd come. These people won't let me get up, but Reynolds will be here soon and then something will rip wide open. They took my guns and my saddle. If I had old Kintuck here I could ride to Mary. She said she'd sing for me every Sunday. Look here, I want ice on my head. This pillow has been heated. I don't want a hot pillow--and I don't want my arms covered. Say, I wish you'd send word to old Jack. I don't know where he is, but he'd come--so will Reynolds.

These policemen will have a hot time keeping me here after they come.

It's too low here, I must take Mary away--it's healthier in the mountains. It ain't so hot----"

Out of this stream of loosely uttered words the princess caught and held little more than the names "Jack" and "Mary."

"Who is Jack?" she softly asked.

Harold laughed. "Don't you know old freckle-faced Jack? Why, I'd know Jack in the dark of a cave. He's my friend--my old chum. He didn't forget me when they sent me to jail. Neither did Mary. She sung for me."

"Can't you tell me Mary's name?"

"Why, it's just Mary, Mary Yardwell."

"Where does she live?"

"Oh, don't bother me," he replied irritably. "What do you want to know for?"

The princess softly persisted, and he said: "She lives in the East. In Chicago. It's too far off to find her. It takes five days to get down there on a cattle train, and then you have to look her up in a directory, and then trail her down. I couldn't find her."

The princess took down Mary's name and sent a messenger to try to find the address of this woman who was more to the delirious man than all the rest of the world.

As he tossed and muttered she took possession of the house. "Is this the worst room you have? Get the best bed in the house ready. I want this man to have the cleanest room you have. Hurry! Telephone to the Western Palace and ask Doctor Sanborn to come at once--tell him Mrs. Raimon wants him."

Under her vigorous action one of the larger rooms was cleared out and made ready, and when the doctor came Harold was moved, under his personal supervision. "I shall stay here till he is out of danger," she said to the doctor as he was leaving, "and please ask my maid to go out and get some clean bed linen and bring it down here at once--and tell her to send Mr. Doris here, won't you?"

The doctor promised to attend to these matters at once.

She sat by the bedside of the sufferer bathing his hands and face as if he were a child, talking to him gently with a mother's grave cadences.

He was now too weak to resist any command, and took his medicine at a gulp like a young robin.

Late in the afternoon as Mrs. Raimon returned from an errand to the street she was amazed to find a tall and handsome girl sitting beside the sick man's bed holding his two cold white hands in both of hers.

There was a singular and thrilling serenity in the stranger's face--a composure that was exaltation, while Harold, with half-closed eyelids, lay as if in awe, gazing up into the woman's face.

Mrs. Raimon waited until Harold's eyes closed like a sleepy child's and the watcher arose--then she drew near and timidly asked:

"Are you Mary?"

"Yes," was the simple reply.

The elder woman's voice trembled. "I am glad you've come. He has called for you incessantly. You must let me help you--I am Mrs. Raimon, of Wagon Wheel--I knew him there."

Mary understood the woman's humble att.i.tude, but she did not encourage a caress. She coldly replied: "I shall be very grateful. He is very ill, and I shall not leave him till his friends come."

She thought immediately of Jack, and sent a telegram saying: "Harold is here ill--come at once." She did not know where to reach Mr. Excell, so could only wait to consult Jack.

Mrs. Raimon remained with her and was so un.o.btrusively ready to do good that Mary's heart softened toward her--though she did not like her florid beauty and her display of jewels.

A telegram from Jack came during the evening: "Do all you can for Harold. Will reach him to-night."

He came in at eleven o'clock, his face knotted into anxious lines. They smoothed out as his eyes fell upon Mary, who met him in the hall.

"Oh, I'm glad to see you here," he said brokenly. "How is he--is there any hope?"

In his presence Mary's composure gave way. "O Jack! If he should die now----" She laid her head against his st.u.r.dy shoulder and for a moment shook with nervous weakness. Almost before he could speak she recovered herself. "He only knew me for a few moments. He's delirious again. The doctor is with him--oh, I can't bear to hear him rave! It is awful! He calls for me, and yet does not know me. O Jack, it makes my heart ache so, he is so weak! He came to see me--and then went away--I didn't know where he had gone. And all the time he was starving here. O G.o.d! It would be too dreadful--if he should die!"

"We won't let him die!" he stoutly replied. "I'm going in to see him."

Together they went in. The doctor, intently studying his patient, sat motionless and silent. He was a young man with a serious face, but his movements were quick, silent, and full of decision. He looked up and made a motion, stopping them where they were.

Out of a low mutter at last Harold's words grew distinct: "I don't care--but the water is cold as ice--I wouldn't put a cayuse into it--let alone Kintuck. Should be a bridge here somewhere."

"Oh, he's on the trail again!" said Mary. "Harold, don't you know me?"

She bent over to him again and put forth the utmost intensity of her will to recall him. "I am here, Harold, don't you see me?"

His head ceased to roll and he looked at her with eyes that made her heart grow sick--then a slow, faint smile came to his lips. "Yes--I know you, Mary--but the river is between us, and it's swift and cold, and Kintuck is thin and hungry--I can't cross now!"

"Doctor," said Jack, as the physician was leaving, "what are the chances?"

The doctor's voice carried conviction: "Oh, he'll pull through--he has one of the finest bodies I ever saw." He smiled. "He'll cross the river all right--and land on our side."