Trailin'! Part 55

She s.n.a.t.c.hed the stick and snapped it into small pieces.

"Does that look final, Anthony?"

He could not answer for a moment. At last he said: "What a woman you would have made for a wife, Sally Fortune; what a fine pal!"

But she laughed, a mirth not forced and harsh, but clear and ringing.

"Anthony, ain't this better'n marriage?"

"By G.o.d," he answered, "I almost think you're right."

For answer a bullet ripped through the right-hand wall and buried itself in a beam on the opposite side of the room.

"Listen!" she said.

There was a fresh crackle of guns, the reports louder and longer drawn.

"Rifles," said Sally Fortune. "I knew no bullet from a six-gun could carry like that one."

The little, sharp sounds of splintering and crunching began everywhere.

A cloud of soot spilled down the chimney and across the hearth. A furrow ploughed across the floor, lifting a splinter as long and even as if it had been grooved out by a machine.

"Look!" said Sally, "they're firin' breast high to catch us standing, and on the level of the floor to get us if we lie down. That's Nash. I know his trademark."

"From the back of the house we can answer them," said Bard. "Let's try it."

"Pepper for their salt, eh?" answered Sally, and they ran back through the old shack to the last room.

CHAPTER x.x.xIX

LEGAL MURDER

As Drew entered his bedroom he found the doctor in the act of restoring the thermometer to its case. His coat was off and his sleeves rolled up to the elbow; he looked more like a man preparing to chop wood than a physician engaging in a struggle with death; but Dr. Young had the fighting strain. Otherwise he would never have persisted in Eldara.

Already the subtle atmosphere of sickness had come upon the room. The shades of the windows were drawn evenly, and low down, so that the increasing brightness of the morning could only temper, not wholly dismiss the shadows. Night is the only reality of the sick-bed; the day is only a long evening, a waiting for the utter dark. The doctor's little square satchel of instruments, vials, and bandages lay open on the table; he had changed the apartment as utterly as he had changed his face by putting on great, horn-rimmed spectacles. They gave an owl-like look to him, an air of omniscience. It seemed as if no mortal ailment could persist in the face of such wisdom.

"Well?" whispered Drew.

"You can speak out, but not loudly," said the doctor calmly. "He's delirious; the fever is getting its hold."

"What do you think?"

"Nothing. The time hasn't come for thinking."

He bent his emotionless eye closer on the big rancher.

"You," he said, "ought to be in bed this moment."

Drew waved the suggestion aside.

"Let me give you a sedative," added Young.

"Nonsense. I'm going to stay here."

The doctor gave up the effort; dismissed Drew from his mind, and focused his glance on the patient once more. Calamity Ben was moving his head restlessly from side to side, keeping up a gibbering mutter. It rose now to words.

"Joe, a mule is to a hoss what a woman is to a man. Ever notice? The difference ain't so much in what they do as what they don't do. Me speakin' personal, I'll take a lot from any hoss and lay it to jest plain spirit; but a mule can make me mad by standin' still and doin'

nothing but wablin' them long ears as if it understood things it wasn't goin' to speak about. Y' always feel around a mule as if it knew somethin' about you--had somethin' on you--and was laughin' soft and deep inside. d.a.m.n a mule! I remember--"

But here he sank into the steady, voiceless whisper again, the shadow of a sound rather than the reality. It was ghostly to hear, even by daylight.

"Will it keep up long?" asked Drew.

"Maybe until he dies."

"I've told you before; it's impossible for him to die."

The doctor made a gesture of resignation.

He explained: "As long as this fever grows our man will steadily weaken; it shows that he's on the downward path. If it breaks--why, that means that he will have a chance--more than a chance--to get well. It will mean that he has enough reserve strength to fight off the shock of the wound and survive the loss of the blood."

"It will mean," said Drew, apparently thinking aloud, "that the guilt of murder does not fall on Anthony."

"Who is Anthony?"

The wounded man broke in; his voice rose high and sharp: "Halt!"

He went on, in a sighing mumble: "Shorty--help--I'm done for!"

"The shooting," said the doctor, who had kept his fingers on the wrist of his patient; "I could feel his pulse leap and stop when he said that."

"He said 'halt!' first; a very clear sign that he tried to stop Bard before Bard shot. Doctor, you're witness to that?"

He had grown deeply excited.

"I'm witness to nothing. I never dreamed that you could be so interested in any human being."

He nodded to himself.

"Do you know how I explained your greyness to myself? As that of a man ennuied with life--tired of living because he had nothing in the world to occupy his affections. And here I find you so far from being ennuied that you are using your whole strength to keep the guilt of murder away from another man. It's amazing. The boys will never believe it."

He continued: "A man who raised a riot in your own house, almost burned down your place, shot your man, stole a horse--gad, Drew, you are sublime!"

But if he expected an explanatory answer from the rancher he was disappointed. The latter pulled up a chair beside the bed and bent his stern eyes on the patient as if he were concentrating all of a great will on bringing Calamity Ben back to health.