A Man in the Open Part 31

O'Flynn has seen my son, he has spoken with Father Jared, he has come with Kate from England, and he left her nursing at Bolt Taylor's bedside. She is sending Surly Brown from Soda Creek with a cable, to build a new scow, and start the ferry again. Ransome Pollock's to manage the Trevor ranch. Iron's to reopen the Sky-line while she makes his peace with the owners--O'Flynn wants to run the packing. She is finding a doctor to take McGee's practise. Tearful George is to buy an imported stallion, and drift him with a bunch of East Oregon mares to stock my empty pastures. The dead settlement is to live again as though there had been no Polly to rob, ruin, and murder among our pioneers. And then my wife will send young Englishmen to school with me for training.

Stroke by stroke this Mr. O'Flynn comes lashing home the news into my hide, as though I were being flogged. He says he hated me always, but never despised me before as he does now. My wife and I should change clothes, only I'd be too useless for a woman. Iron says the same, and in a most unchristian way I thrashed the pair, knocking their heads together, for putting me too much in the wrong while I wanted my breakfast. They think there's something in my argument.

The news is better for being discussed, and best of all I reckon this man Eure who is to side-track Polly, building a town at the foot of the Hundred Mile Falls. The pines on the high land, too small a trash for lumber, are good enough for pulp to feed a mill, while paper is the plate from which we eat our knowledge. I see the black bush turning into books, the lands in oats or pasture till they're warmed for wheat, and when we come to the rocks there's marble to build colleges for our sons, gold to endow them. The land too poor for any other crop, is best for raising men.

It's only because I'm happy I write nonsense, feeling this night as though I were being cured of all my blindness. I have a sense that though I sit in darkness, my wife is with me, and if my eyes were opened, I should see her. Is it our weakness which gives such strength to love?

CHAPTER IV

AT HUNDRED MILE HOUSE

_Kate's Narrative_

Mr. Eure inspected the woods and water-power, then departed for the coast, secretly to buy timber limits, avowedly to find a nurse and a doctor.

Mr. Tom Faulkner, his engineer, surveyed, then let contracts for temporary snow road, log buildings at the falls, and a telegraph line which would secure our business from being known at Polly's post-office.

Mr. Dale reopened the Sky-line mines, pending my arrangement with the owners.

Mr. Surly Brown placed a cable and built a scow in readiness to renew his ferry business.

Mr. Tearful George placed loads of forage a day's march apart across the forest, then drifted live stock into Jesse's ranch.

Father Jared sought out young gentlemen to be trained at Jesse's "School of Colonial Instruction."

Mr. William O'Flynn became bartender, despatch rider, stable man, general adviser, and commander-in-chief at the Hundred.

A bewildered Chinaman, with a yellow smile, cooked, scrubbed, chattered pidgin-English, and burned incense to Joss in the kitchen.

And I, Kate, was busy nursing and keeping house, with never a moment to spare for the specters which thronged our forest. After the snow road diverted traffic, my one visitor was Pete Mathson, who on Sat.u.r.days climbed the long hill for his rations. When my patient was well enough, he would talk with "Bolt" Taylor about old times in the gold mines, or on the high technic of pack-train harness, above the comprehension of a woman.

Until the nurse came I was with my patient always, and slept in the same close room. On her arrival--how I envied that pretty uniform--Nurse Panton proceeded to set us all to rights. She was a colorless creature, supported by routine as by a corset, and Billy informed me that she needed to be shocked thoroughly. He told her that the patient, being a sailor, wanted the nursing done shipshape and Bristol fashion. Nurse and I were to have each four hours on and four off, with two dog or half watches, which would daily reverse the order, so giving us the middle watch by turns. Nurse was indignant at the very idea, and finding me on Billy's side, protested to the captain. "Capital!" said he, delighted at any chance of shaking up the long monotony of illness. "You'll strike the bells as we do at sea," he said, "two for each hour."

Of course the first of the nursing ten commandments is, "Pretend to agree with the patient;" but then the naval officer, if he missed his bells, would awake with horrible deep-sea oaths, and "Stop her grog," so that she got no tea except by obedience.

Whether relieved at midnight or at four A. M. I would put on my furs for a little prowl outdoors. To leave the house when it was forty degrees below zero, felt like the plunge into an icy bath, but gave the same refreshment afterward. And it was good to watch the ghostly dances of the northern lights fill the whole sky with music visible.

Once setting out on such an excursion I traversed the dining-hall, entered the dark barroom, and opened the inner door which gave upon the porch. But this time I could not push the storm door open. Something resisted, something outside thrusting at the panels, something alive. I fell back against the bar, imagining bears, burglars, bogies, anything, while I listened, afraid to breathe.

It was then I heard a voice, a girlish voice outside in the Arctic cold, chanting in singsong recitation as though at school:

"Bruce, Bruce; Huron, Desoronto; Chatham Cayuga; Guelph--not Guelph--oh, what comes after Cayuga?" Then feeble hands battered against the door, "Teacher! Teacher!"

But when I opened the door, the girl stepped back afraid.

"You're not the teacher," she said; "oh, tell me before she comes.

Sixty-six counties and the towns have all got mixed."

"Come in and let me tell you."

"I daren't! I daren't! You're not the teacher. This is not the school.

You'll take me back!"

She turned, trying to run away, but her legs seemed wooden, and she slid about as though she were wearing clogs.

"I won't," she screamed, "I won't go back!" Then she fell.

"Dear child, you shan't go back."

But still she shrank from me. "Oh, leave me alone!" she pleaded.

"Mayn't I give you some tea?"

"You won't take me back to Spite House?"

"Not to that dreadful place."

"Do you keep girls, too?"

"There's only a nurse, and a poor dying man."

"And you'll hear me the counties of Ontario?"

"Why, yes, dear."

"I'll come then," but as she tried to get up, "it's cramp," she moaned.

"Dear child, you're freezing."

"I'm not cold, it's cramp."

She must have fallen through the snow which covered our water-hole, for she was literally incased in ice up to the b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

Finding I had not strength to carry her, I shouted for the nurse, who roused Billy, and then the Chinaman. Together we carried her indoors, gave her brandy, and laid her, dressed as she was, in Captain Taylor's bath. Then while Billy rode hard for a doctor, nurse and I filled the bath with freezing water, which for eight hours we kept renewed with ice. Drawn gently from her body, the frost formed a film of ice upon the surface, but she a.s.sured me that she felt quite warm, without the slightest pain. To sustain her I gave liquid food at intervals, and quite clear now in her mind, even cheerfully she trusted me with her story.

She told me of a village among vineyards, overlooking Lake Ontario, just where a creek comes tumbling down from the Niagara heights. Her father, a retired minister, wasted his narrow means in trying to raise the proper grapes for sacramental wine. Mother was dead, and nine small children had to be fed and clothed, to appear with decency at church and school, so that they would not be ashamed among the neighbors. "You see," she added primly, "I'm the eldest, the only one grown up, so, of course, I couldn't be spared to stay at college." And there was little to earn in the village, much to do taking a mother's place.

Then Uncle John found an advertis.e.m.e.nt in the paper. A governess was wanted for four children somewhere in British Columbia. The wages were so generous that there would be enough to spare for helping father. It meant so much of proper food, and good warm clothing for the younger children. So references were exchanged with Mr. Brooke, who wrote most charming letters, and Uncle John lent money for the journey. My little schoolma'am pursed her lips severely over that loan, which must be repaid by instalments. Then her eyes shone with tears, and her face quivered, all the scholastic manner quite gone, for she spoke of the sad parting with everybody she loved, then of the long nights, the lonely days of that endless journey across the continent.

Mr. Brooke met Jenny at Ashcroft, and took her by sleigh nearly a hundred miles, getting more and more familiar and horrid until, in a state of wild fear of him, she ran for safety into a drunken riot at Spite House. The waitresses were rude and cruel, Polly lay drunk on the floor. There were no children.

Afterward I learned from Mr. Eure that I was a prejudiced witness, without a shred of evidence, that no court would listen to hearsay, and that the dying girl's confession would not be allowed in court except it were made under oath before a magistrate. Poor Jenny would never have told any man what happened at Spite House; she would not have given the last sane moments of her life to vengeance; and so there was no case against either Brooke or Polly in a crime which had earned them penal servitude.

Vengeance? I think our prayers together did more good, and when the time came for Jenny's removal to a bed of lint soaked in carbolic oil, she was prepared to face the coming pain.