A Claim on Klondyke Part 10

For weeks matters went on like this. It was five since the accident, when I noticed a decided change in him, and it was not for the better!

It was by that time winter. All green things but the pines and spruces were frozen and dead. Snow covered all the high lands, and even the flats were drifted with it. The still water everywhere was frozen; only our creek still ran, and there were still fish in it. I don't know what possessed me--thank G.o.d, something did--but I took the notion to secure some of these salmon.

It was easily done. I rolled a few logs and brush into a narrow place, then went up stream and drove the fish down, and many became entangled there. I dragged out half-a-dozen and slung them in the trees about our den.

Another day I saw a bear foraging about near. I gave Meade warning that I was about to shoot, and I killed it easily. I put a ball through him, under his arm, and he died without a struggle. It was very fat and lazy--a cinnamon.

I had plenty to do to skin it and cut it up. The fat I hung up in the trees. We had no great amount of oil left for our little lamp, and very few candles, and I thought, "If we must winter here we must make shift with this in some way until next June."

For I began to think that my idea of getting out on a sleigh would never work. Yet I was busy constructing one. But I thought I saw that if my friend was to get away it would only be when the water was open again, eight or nine months later!

Our almost finished raft was now frozen fast to the bank. I almost hated the sight of it. I wondered if, after all, that would be the means by which we should get away.

I do not remember that I regarded the prospect of wintering there as such a terrible calamity. We really had plenty about us, and we were such excellent companions that I only felt if he got well, all would be well.

I must admit that it crossed my mind more than once--"If he should die!"

I put this dreadful thought away, I kept it down generally, but sometimes it struck me suddenly, and I felt as if a stream of ice ran down my spine, as though my heart was frozen. The contemplation of such a dire disaster was awful.

Time went on; I could see no improvement. If his leg was joining properly I could not tell, nor could he. He himself was usually very quiet, yet there was a look creeping over him to which I could not shut my eyes; he was thinner, greyer, and shrivelled.

One night he put down his pipe as if with loathing. "I'll smoke no more," said he; "I believe it is not good for me."

I took no notice--thought it better not.

Later he threw down his book, declaring he could not read--that his leg was so painful.

I examined it. So far as I could tell all seemed right--so far as appearance went. His foot was cold and somewhat swollen, but there was warmth enough elsewhere.

Next day he had much more pain. He was all for cold water bandages.

To please him I bathed his leg and wrapped it in wet cloths--this eased him.

That night he complained that the half-wet bandages were irritating him. What was I to do?

Finding that cold water applications soothed him, I kept the cloths wet always. Neither of us had the least idea whether we were doing right.

I discovered that he slept very little. I myself pa.s.sed many a sleepless night, but my health was wonderfully good. I was quite robust in spite of my terrible anxieties.

The weather was now extremely cold--as cold as I had ever felt it in the east of Canada. Our place was warm though--so long as we kept the door closed and excluded draughts we were cosy.

The nights were extremely long, and the days, though usually sunny, were very cold. We had several hard gales: the fine, dry snow was forced through every crevice. I used to bring in abundance of food and fuel at such times, cram every crevice round our doorway full of moss, make Patch come inside, and none of us left the shelter whilst the blizzard lasted.

I had cut a hole in the door and covered it with a piece of the thin intestine of a bear. We had no gla.s.s. I used to read to my companion sometimes from a Bible, at others from Shakespeare, and we had a copy of that penny book W. T. Stead has published, 'Hymns that have Helped.'

It had got out to Victoria, and I had picked it up at a book-store and valued it, for several of those hymns had powerful a.s.sociations for me.

My friend was fond of some of them too, and I often saw him read a verse or two with tears in his eyes.

He was generally silent. This made me very sad. Do as I would, try as I did, I could not help being very much cast down, very full of forebodings of evil.

One night--it was bitterly cold outside, and the wind was howling through the trees, we were warm and comfortable enough as far as that went--I was looking sorrowfully at the invalid, who I thought was dozing, when he slowly opened his eyes--which seemed to me to have grown very large and prominent--and gazing at me, oh! so mournfully, said, "Bertie, my friend, I suppose you realise that I am not going to get well?"

For a few moments I could not reply, my heart was in my throat, I felt as if it were choking me; at length I managed to e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.e, "Oh!

Meade, my dear friend, have patience--don't break down like this--or I shall----"

His eyes were suffused with tears. "Dear friend, indeed," he began, slowly and in broken accents, "I grieve--G.o.d knows how very much I grieve--to tell you this, but I know I am not improving, and I believe I shall never leave this hut alive. I have been thinking about you, wondering what you will do if I am taken. I am awfully sorry that I brought you here."

"Say not one word on that head," I interrupted him; "_I_ do not regret it. Look how well we have done. What has happened is terrible, I know, but oh! pray don't give up, don't get to thinking that you'll not recover. Please G.o.d you'll be all right soon, then fancy with what joy we'll be off home in the spring."

Thus I tried to cheer him--thus I tried to look at things.

"Well, well," he replied, with a wan smile, "I'll try to be more hopeful, I'll try to trust; but listen, what will you do if I am taken?

Can you make your way out alone, think you?"

I refused to answer,--I merely said that I would not even think about it, much less talk of it, and begged him not to. I asked him if his leg was so painful, and what reason he had to say he was no better, in reply to which he went into a number of particulars which I need not repeat.

Later he talked again about his mother and sisters, and, laying his hand on mine, he begged me to bear with him, not to be angry with him, whilst he explained what he wished to be done, "supposing," and he gazed at me in a most affecting way as he said it,--"supposing I don't get home myself."

I said very little,--I let him talk. I nodded occasionally to let him see I heard what he was saying, understood, and would do as he wished.

He told me what proportion he desired his mother and his sisters to have--"if I ever got out safely with the gold"--and that the remainder was to be given to f.a.n.n.y Hume, the lady to whom he was engaged.

He bade me put all these things down in my notebook, saying also that he should write letters to them all, "in case of accidents." He dwelt for some time on these most melancholy topics, and I expect would have gone on still longer had I not diverted his thoughts into another channel.

I got on to the subject of the value of the gold we had, and asked his opinion of the way we were to proceed to secure our claim, so that we might return next season and work it.

He told me again all he knew on the subject, declared that we should have to hire men at Dawson, or at Forty Mile, or even at Circle City, to work for us; and indeed for an hour or two he talked on very much in his old way, full of information and cleverness, and quite excited about the fortune we had made.

He fell asleep at last with a cheerful look on his face, after having by my persuasion smoked a pipe with me.

I rolled myself in my blankets then, and with some hopefulness and a quieter spirit I too went to sleep.

Several times I awoke and put on firing. Meade was always sleeping peacefully, but towards morning, just as grey light was filtering through our window, I was aroused by his groans. He told me that he was suffering acutely, that the pain in his leg was maddening, that he was sure all had gone wrong there. He begged me to remove the bandages, declaring that he knew they were no longer needed. "Either the bones have joined now, or they never will," said he. "If they have not, then I shall never get better, and if I go on any longer in this agony I shall die surely."

Perplexed, bewildered, terribly afraid of doing wrong, yet quite unable to withstand his entreaties, I consented in the end to do as he desired.

He had already thrown the blankets from him, and was tossing his unhurt leg and arms about most dangerously. His face was flushed, he was continually crying out for water, and I, even with my small experience, knew that he was in a high fever, of the seriousness of which I was conscious.

I loosed the fastenings of the long strip of wood. This did not appease him. He exclaimed that he was on fire, that the pain was excruciating. He became angry with me because I hesitated to take off the splints. He talked wildly, incoherently, madly, and then began tearing at the bandages himself, so I undid the splints and took them off, exposing his bare leg, and then I no longer wondered that he suffered as he did.

He fainted, I believe, and when the pressure was taken off he lay back pale and silent. I brought whisky, and by degrees got him to swallow some. I opened the door, brought in some snow, which covered everything outside now. I put some on his forehead. He was a long time, or so it seemed to me, before he came to.

I cannot describe the appearance of his leg; it horrified me. From that moment I gave up all hope of his recovery. It was indeed some time before he spoke, and then he was delirious, light-headed. He talked and raved the whole night through. Sometimes he begged me to remove the bandages--which were off; at others he talked of his mother, of f.a.n.n.y Hume, often of Jim and Fan, and of me and of our work. I never went through such a day and night--I never want to again.

Towards morning he fell asleep, exhausted. I wondered if I had done wisely in removing these bandages. I thought not. He slept now so profoundly that I endeavoured to replace some of them without awaking him, and I did succeed in getting the long strip down his side and securing it just as he awoke. He was in his right mind then, and I believe had no knowledge of the condition he had been in.

He endeavoured to move his leg--he could not. I suppose he recognised the importance of this discovery, for he then threw himself back, extended his arms, and sighed profoundly as he muttered, "It is so, then--the case is hopeless! hopeless!"

He looked at me once, a fixed solemn look, then closed his eyes and lay there motionless and silent.