The Doctor Part 48

"Tie up to him tight, you bet your eternal life!" There was a sudden gleam from under "Mexico's" heavy brows and a ring in his usually drawling voice, that sufficiently attested his earnestness. "There ain't too many of that kind raound."

"What do you think of that?" inquired the editor, as "Mexico" sauntered out of the door.

"Think? I think there's a law against gamblers in this province and it ought to be enforced."

"That means war," said the editor.

"Well, let it come. That doctor is the whole trouble, I can see. I'd give a thousand dollars down to see him out of the country."

But there was no sign that the doctor had any desire to leave the country, and all who knew him were quite certain that until he should so desire, leave he would not. All through the winter he went about his work with a devotion that taxed even his superb physical strength to the uttermost. In addition to his work as Medical Superintendent of the railroad he had been asked to take oversight of the new coal mines opening up here and there in the Pa.s.s, which brought him no end of both labour and trouble. The managers of the mines held the most primitive ideas in regard to both safety in operating a mine and sanitation of miners' quarters. Consequently, the doctor had to enter upon a long campaign of education. It was an almost hopeless task. The directors were remote from the ground and were unimpressed by the needs so urgently reported by their doctor. The managers on the ground were concerned chiefly with keeping down the expenses of operation. The miners themselves were, as a cla.s.s, too well accustomed to the wretched conditions under which they lived and worked to make any strenuous objection.

How to bring about a better condition of things became, with the doctor, a constant subject of thought. It was also the theme of conversation on the occasion of his monthly visits to the Kuskinook Hospital, where it had become an established custom for d.i.c.k and him to meet since his return from Scotland.

"We'll get them to listen when we kill a few score men, not before,"

grumbled Barney to d.i.c.k and Margaret.

"It's the universal law," replied d.i.c.k. "Some men must die for their nation. It's been the way from the first."

"But, Barney, is it wise that you should worry yourself and work yourself to death as you are doing?" said Margaret, anxiously. "You know you can't stand this long. You are not the man you were when you came back."

Barney only smiled. "That would be no great matter," he said, lightly.

"But there is no fear of me," he added. "I don't pine for an early death, you know. I've got a lot to live for."

There was silence for a minute or two. They were thinking of the grave in the little churchyard across the sea. Ever since Barney's return, and as often as they met together, they allowed themselves to think and speak freely of the little valley at Craigraven, so full of light and peace, with its grave beside the little church. At first d.i.c.k and Margaret shrank from all reference to Iola, and sought to turn Barney's mind from thoughts so full of pain. But Barney would not have it so.

Frankly and simply he began to speak of her, dwelling lovingly and tenderly upon all the details of the last days of her life, as he had gathered them from Lady Ruthven, her friend.

"It would be easier for me not to speak of her," he had said on his return, "but I've lost too much to risk the loss of more. I want you to talk of her, and by and by I shall find it easy."

And this they did most loyally, and with tender solicitude for him, till at length the habit grew, so that whenever they came together it only deepened and chastened their joy in each other to keep fresh the memory of her who had filled so large a place, and so vividly, in the life of each of them. And this was good for them all, but especially for Barney.

It took the bitterness out of his grief, and much of the pain out of his loss. The memory of that last evening with Iola, and Lady Ruthven's story of the purifying of her spirit, during those last few months, combined to throw about her a radiance such as she had never shed even in the most radiant moments of her life.

"There is only place for grat.i.tude," he said, one evening, to them. "Why should I allow any mean or selfish thought to spoil my memory of her or to hinder the grat.i.tude I ought to feel, that her going was so free from pain, and her last evening so full of joy?"

It was with these feelings in his heart that he went back to the camps to his work among the sick and wounded in body and in heart. And as he went in and out among the men they became conscious of a new spirit in him. His touch on the knife was as sure as ever, his nerve as steady, but while the old reserve still held his lips from overflowing, the words that dropped were kinder, the tone gentler, the touch more tender.

The terrible restlessness, too, was gone out of his blood. A great calm possessed him. He was always ready for the ultimate demand, prepared to give of his life to the uttermost. To his former care for the physical well-being of the men, he added now a concern for their mental and spiritual good, and hence the system of libraries and clubrooms he had initiated throughout the camps and towns along the line. It mattered not to him that he had to meet the open opposition of the saloon element and the secret hostility of those who depended upon that element for the success of their political schemes. His love of a fight was as strong as ever. At first the men could not fathom his motives, but as men do, they silently and observantly waited for the real motive to emerge. As "Mexico" said, they "couldn't get onto his game." And none of them was more completely puzzled than was "Mexico" himself, but none more fully acknowledged, and more frankly yielded to the fascination of the new spirit and new manner which the doctor brought to his work. At the same time, however, "Mexico" could not rid himself of a suspicion, now and then, that the real game was being kept dark. The day was to come when "Mexico" would cast away every vestige of suspicion and give himself up to the full luxury of devotion to a man, worthy to be followed, who lived not for his own things. But that day was not yet, and "Mexico" was kept in a state of uncertainty most disturbing to his mind and injurious to his temper. Day by day reports came of the doctor's ceaseless toil and unvarying self-sacrifice, the very magnitude of which made it difficult for "Mexico" to accept it as being sincere.

"What's his game?" he kept asking himself more savagely, as the mystery deepened. "What's in it for him? Is he after McKenty's job?"

One night the doctor came in from a horseback trip to a tie camp twelve miles up the valley, wearied and soaked with the wet snow that had been falling heavily all day. "Mexico" received him with a wrathful affection.

"What the--ah--what makes you go out a night like this?" "Mexico" asked him with indignation, struggling to check his profanity, which he had come to notice the doctor disliked. "I can't get onto you. It's all just d--, that is, cursed foolishness!"

"Look here, 'Mexico,' wait till I get these wet things off and I'll tell you. Now listen," said the doctor, when he sat warm and dry before "Mexico's" fire. "I've been wanting to tell you this for some time."

He opened his black bag and took out a New Testament which now always formed a part of his equipment, and finding the place, read the story of the two debtors. "Do you remember, 'Mexico,' the talk I gave you last spring?" "Mexico" nodded. That talk he would not soon forget. "I had a big debt on then. It was forgiven me. He did a lot for me that time, and since then He has piled it up till I feel as if I couldn't live long enough to pay back what I owe." Then he told "Mexico" in a low, reverent tone, with shining eyes and thrilling voice, the story of Iola's going.

"That's why," he said, when he concluded his tale. "That was a great thing He did for her and for me. And then, 'Mexico,' these poor chaps!

they have so little. Who cares for them? That's why I go out on a night like this. And don't you think that's good enough?"

Then "Mexico" turned himself loose for five minutes and let off the sulphurous emotion that had been collecting during the doctor's tale.

After he had become coherent again he said with slow emphasis:

"You've got me, Doc. Wipe your feet on me when you want."

"'Mexico,'" replied the doctor, "you know I don't preach at you. I haven't, have I?"

"Blanked if--that is, no, you haven't."

"Well, you say I can have you. I'll take you right here. You are my friend." He put out his hand, which "Mexico" gripped and held fast.

"But," continued the doctor, "I want to say that He wants you more than I do, wants to wipe off that debt of yours, wants you for His friend."

"Say, Doc," said "Mexico," drawing back a little from him, "I guess not.

That there debt goes back for twenty years, and it's piled out of sight.

It never bothers me much except when I see you and hear you talk. It would be a blank--that is, a pretty fine thing to have it cleaned off.

But say, Doc, your heap agin mine would be like a sandhill agin that mountain there."

"The size makes no difference to Him, 'Mexico,'" said the doctor, quietly. "He is great enough to wipe out anything. I tell you, 'Mexico,'

it's good to get it wiped off. It's simply great!"

"You're right there," said "Mexico," emphatically. Then, as if a sudden suspicion flashed in upon him, "Say, you're not talkin' religion to me, are you? I ain't goin' to die just yet."

"Religion? Call it anything you like, 'Mexico.' All I know is I've got a good thing and I want my friend to have it."

When the doctor was departing next morning "Mexico" stopped him at the door. "I say, Doc, would you mind letting me have that there book of yours for a spell?"

The doctor took it out of his bag. "It's yours, 'Mexico,' and you can bank on it."

The book proved of absorbing interest to "Mexico." He read it openly in the saloon without any sense of incongruity, at first, between the book and the business he was carrying on, but not without very considerable comment on the part of his customers and friends. And what he read became the subject of frequent discussions with his friend, the doctor.

The book did its work with "Mexico," as it does with all who give it place, and the first sign of its influence was an uncomfortable feeling in "Mexico's" mind in regard to his business and his habits of life. His discomfort became acute one pay night, after a very successful game of poker in which he had relieved some half a dozen lumbermen of their pay.

For the first time in his life his winnings brought him no satisfaction.

The great law of love to his brother troubled him. In vain he argued that it was a fair deal and that he himself would have taken his loss without whining. The disturbing thoughts would not down. He determined that he would play no more till he had talked the matter over with his friend, and he watched impatiently for the doctor's return. But that week the doctor failed to appear, and "Mexico" grew increasingly uncertain in his mind and in his temper. It added to his wretchedness not a little when the report reached him that the doctor was confined to his bed in the hospital at Kuskinook. In fact, this news plunged "Mexico" into deepest gloom.

"If he's took to bed," he said, "there ain't much hope, I guess, for they'd never get him there unless he was too far gone to fight 'em off."

But at the Kuskinook Hospital there was no anxiety felt in regard to the doctor's illness. He was run down with the fall and winter's work. He had caught cold, a slight inflammation had set up in the bowels, and that was all. The inflammation had been checked and in a few days he would be on his feet again.

"If we could only work a scheme to keep him in bed a month," groaned d.i.c.k to his nurse as they stood beside his bed.

"There is, unhappily, no one in authority over him," replied Margaret, "but we'll keep him ill as long as we can. Dr. Cotton," and here she smilingly appealed to the newly appointed a.s.sistant, "you will help, I am sure."

"Most certainly. Now we have him down we shall combine to keep him there."

"Yes, a month at the very least," cried d.i.c.k.

But Barney laughed their plans to scorn. In two days he promised them he would be fit again.

"It is the Superintendent of the Hospital against the Medical Superintendent of the Crow's Nest Railway," said Dr. Cotton, "and I think in this case I'll back the former, from what I've seen."

"Ah," replied Margaret, "that is because you haven't known your patient long, Doctor. When he speaks the word of command we simply obey."