The Ridin' Kid from Powder River Part 48

The Spider hesitated directly beneath the arc-light at the entrance.

"If I don't call up or show up--you needn't say anything about this deal to him--but you can tell him he's got a friend on the job."

The doctor nodded and walked briskly back to the superintendent's office, where he waited until the secretary appeared, when he turned over the money that had been paid to him for the operation and a private room, which The Spider had engaged for two weeks. He told the secretary to make out a receipt in Peter Annersley's name. "A friend is handling this for him," he explained.

Then he sent for the head-nurse. "I would like to have Miss Gray and Miss Barlow help me," he told her, in speaking of the proposed operation.

"Miss Gray is on duty to-night," said the head-nurse.

"Then if you will arrange to have her get a rest, please. And--oh, yes, we'll probably need the oxygen. And you might tell Dr. Gleason that this is a special case and I'd like to have him administer the anaesthetic."

Andover strode briskly to the surgical ward and stopped at Pete's couch. As he stooped and listened to Pete's breathing, the packet of crisp bills slipped from his inside pocket, and dropped to the floor.

He was in the lobby, on his way to his car, when Doris came running after him. "Dr. Andover," she called. "I think you dropped this,"--and she gave him the packet of bills.

"Mighty careless of me," he said, feeling in his inside pocket.

"Handkerchief--slipped them in on top of it. Thank you."

Doris gazed at him curiously. His eyes wavered. "We're going to do our best to pull him through," he said with forced sprightliness.

Doris smiled and nodded. But her expression changed as she again entered the long, dim aisle between the double row of cots. Only that evening, just before she had talked with Andover about Pete, she had heard the surgeon tell the house-physician jokingly that all that stood between him and absolute dest.i.tution was a very thin and exceedingly popular check-book--and Andover had written his personal check for ten dollars which he had cashed at the office. Doris wondered who the strange man was that had come in with Andover, an hour ago, and how Dr.

Andover had so suddenly become possessed of a thousand dollars.

CHAPTER x.x.xV

"CAUGHT IT JUST IN TIME"

At exactly ten-thirty the next morning The Spider was at the information desk of the General Hospital, inquiring for Andover.

"He's in the operating-room," said the clerk.

"Then I'll wait." The Spider sidled across to the reception-room and sat nervously fingering the arm of his chair. Nurses pa.s.sed and repa.s.sed the doorway, going quietly through the hall. From somewhere came the faint animal-like wail of a newly born babe. The Spider had gripped the arm of his chair. A well-gowned woman stopped at the information desk and left a great armful of gorgeous roses wrapped in white tissue paper. Presently a man--evidently a laborer--hobbled past on crutches, his foot bandaged; a huge, grotesque white foot that he held stiffly in front of him and which he seemed to be following, rather than guiding. A nurse walked slowly beside him. The Spider drummed the chair-arm with nervous fingers. His little beady eyes were constantly in motion, glancing here and there,--at the empty chairs in the room, at the table with its neatly piled magazines, at a large picture of the hospital, and a great group of nurses standing on the stone steps, and then toward the doorway. Presently a nurse came in and told him that Dr. Andover would be unable to see him for some time: that the patient just operated on was doing as well as could be expected.

"He--he's come through all right?"

"Yes. You might call up in an hour or so."

The Spider rose stiffly and put on his hat.

"Thanks," he said and hobbled out and across the lobby. A cab was waiting for him, and the driver seemed to know his destination, for he whipped up his horse and drove south toward the Mexican quarter, finally stopping at an inconspicuous house on a dingy side street that led toward the river. The Spider glanced up and down the street before he alighted. Then he gave the driver a bill quite out of proportion to his recent service. "You can come about the same time to-morrow," said The Spider, and he turned and hobbled to the house.

About noon he came out, and after walking several blocks stopped at a corner grocery and telephoned to the hospital, asking for Andover, who informed him that the operation had been successful, as an operation, but that the patient was in a critical condition--that it would be several hours before they would dare risk a definite statement as to his chances of recovery. The surgeon told The Spider that they were using oxygen, which fact in itself was significant.

The Spider crossed the street to a restaurant, drank several cups of coffee, and on his way out bought a supply of cigars. He played solitaire in his room all that afternoon, smoking and muttering to himself until the fading light caused him to glance at his watch. He slipped into his coat and made his way uptown.

Shortly after seven he entered the hospital. Andover had left word that he be allowed to see Pete. And again The Spider stood beside Pete's cot, gazing down upon a face startlingly white in contrast to his dark hair and black eyebrows--a face drawn, the cheeks pinched, and the lips bloodless. "You taking care of him?"--and The Spider turned to Doris. She nodded, wondering if this queer, almost deformed creature were "The Spider" that Pete had so often talked to when half-conscious. Whoever he was, her quick, feminine intuition told her that this man's stiff and awkward silence signified more than any spoken solicitude; that behind those beady black eyes was a soul that was tormented with doubt and hope, a soul that had battled through dark ways to this one great unselfish moment . . . How could one know that this man risked his life in coming there? Yet she did know it. The very fact that he was Pete's friend would almost substantiate that.

Had not the papers said that Peter Annersley was a hired gunman of The Spider's? And although this man had not given his name, she knew that he was The Spider of Pete's incoherent mutterings. And The Spider, glancing about the room, gazed curiously at the metal oxygen tank and then at the other cot.

"You staying here right along?" he queried.

"For a while until he is out of danger."

"When will that be?"

"I don't know. But I do know that he is going to live."

"Did the doc say so?"

Doris shook her head. "No, Dr. Andover thinks he has a chance, but I _know_ that he will get well."

"Does Pete know that I been here?"

"No. The doctor thought it best not to say anything about that yet."

"I reckon that's right."

"Is he your son?" asked Doris.

"No. Just a kid that used to--work for me."

And without further word, The Spider hobbled to the doorway and was gone.

Hour after hour Doris sat by the cot watching the faintly flickering life that, bereft of conscious will, fought for existence with each deep-drawn breath. About two in the morning Pete's breathing seemed to stop. Doris felt the hesitant throb of the pulse and, rising, stepped to the hall and telephoned for the house-surgeon.

"Caught it just in time," he said to the nurse as he stepped back and watched the patient react to the powerful heart-stimulant. Pete's breathing became more regular.

The surgeon had been gone for a few minutes when Pete's heavy lids opened.

"It--was gittin'--mighty dark--down there," he whispered. And Pete stared up at her, his great dark eyes slowly brightening under the artificial stimulant. Doris bent over him and smoothed his hair back from his forehead. "I'm the--the Ridin' Kid--from--Powder River," he whispered hoa.r.s.ely. "I kin ride 'em comin' or goin'--but I don't wear no coat next journey. My hand caught in the pocket." He glanced toward the doorway. "But we fooled 'em. Ed got away, so I reckon I'll throw in with you, Spider." Pete tried to lift himself up, but the nurse pressed him gently back. Tiny beads of sweat glistened on his forehead. Doris put her hand on the back of his. At the touch his lips moved. "Boca was down there--in the dark--smilin' and tellin' me it was all right and to come ahead," he whispered. "I was tryin' to climb out--of that there--canon . . . Andy throwed his rope . . .

Caught it just in time . . . And Andy he laughs. Reckon he didn't know--I was--all in . . ." Pete breathed deeply, muttered, and drifted into an easy sleep. Doris watched him for a while, fighting her own desire to sleep. She knew that the crisis was past, and with that knowledge came a physical let-down that left her worn and desperately weary: not because she had been on duty almost twenty-four hours without rest--she was young and could stand that--but because she had given so much of herself to this case from the day Pete had been brought in--through the operation which was necessarily savage, and up to the moment when he had fallen asleep, after having pa.s.sed so close to the border of the dark Unknown. And now that she knew he would recover, she felt strangely disinterested in her work at the hospital.

But being a rather practical young person, never in the least morbid, she attributed this unusual indifference to her own condition. She would not allow herself to believe that the life she had seen slipping away, and which she had drawn back from the shadows, could ever mean anything to her, aside from her profession. And why should it? This dark-eyed boy was a stranger, an outcast, even worse, if she were to believe what the papers said of him. Yet he had been so patient and uncomplaining that first night when she knew that he must have been suffering terribly. Time and again she had wiped the red spume from his lips, until at last he ceased to gasp and cough and lay back exhausted. And Doris could never forget how he had tried to smile as he told her, whispering hoa.r.s.ely, "that he was plumb ashamed of makin'

such a doggone fuss." Then day after day his suffering had grown less as his vitality ebbed. Following, came the operation, an almost hopeless experiment . . . and that strange creature, The Spider . . .

who had paid for the operation and for this private room . . . Doris thought of the thousand dollars in bills that she had found and returned to Andover; and while admiring his skill as a surgeon, she experienced a sudden dislike for him as a man. It seemed to her that he had been actually bribed to save Pete's life, and had pocketed the bribe . . . again it was The Spider . . . What a name for a human being--yet how well it fitted! The thin bow-legs, the quick, sidling walk, the furtive manner, the black, blinking eyes . . . Doris yawned and shivered. Dawn was battling its slow way into the room. A nurse stepped in softly. Doris rose and made a notation on the chart, told the nurse that her patient had been sleeping since two o'clock, and nodding pleasantly left the room.

The new nurse sniffed audibly. Miss Gray was one of Dr. Andover's pets! She knew! She had seen them talking together, often enough.

And Andover knew better than to try to flirt with her. What a fuss they were making about "Miss Gray's cowboy," as Pete had come to be known among some of the nurses who were not "pets." Her pleasant soliloquy was interrupted by a movement of Pete's hand. "Kin I have a drink?" he asked faintly.

"Yes, dearie," said the nurse, and smiled a large, and toothful smile as she turned and stepped out into the hall. Pete's listless, dark eyes followed her. "Fer Gawd's sake!" he muttered. His eyes closed.

He wondered what had become of his honest-to-Gosh nurse, Miss Gray.

CHAPTER x.x.xVI