Troop One of the Labrador Part 8

"Do you think you could let me fuss around that shoulder a little while?" Doctor Joe asked. "Does it hurt too badly for you to bear it?"

"Oh, I can stand un," said Lem. "Fuss around un all you wants to, Doctor Joe. You knows how to mend un and patch un up, and I wants un mended."

Doctor Joe called Andy to his a.s.sistance with another basin of warm water, in which, as previously, he dissolved antiseptic tablets, explaining to the boys the reason, and adding:

"If a wound is kept clean Nature will heal it. Nothing you can apply to a wound will a.s.sist in the healing. All that is necessary is to keep it clean and keep it properly bandaged to protect it from infection."

"Wouldn't a bit of wet t'baccer draw the soreness out?" Lem suggested.

"No! No! No!" protested Doctor Joe, properly horrified. "Never put tobacco or anything else on a wound. If you do you will run the risk of infection which might result in blood poisoning, which might kill you."

"I puts t'baccer on cuts sometimes and she always helps un," insisted Lem.

"It's simply through the mercy of G.o.d, then, and your good clean blood, that it hasn't killed you," declared Doctor Joe.

From his kit Doctor Joe brought forth bandages and gauze and some strange-looking instruments, and turned his attention to the shoulder.

Lem gritted his teeth and, though Doctor Joe knew he was suffering, never uttered a whimper or complaint.

An examination disclosed the fact that the bullet had coursed to the right, and Doctor Joe located it just under the skin directly forward of the arm pit. Though it was necessarily a painful wound, he was relieved to find that no vital organ had been injured, and he was able to a.s.sure Lem that he would soon be around again and be as well as ever.

When the bullet was extracted Doctor Joe examined it critically, washed it and placed it carefully in his pocket. It proved to be a thirty-eight calibre, black powder rifle bullet. Doctor Joe had no doubt of that. He had made a study of firearms and had the eye of an expert.

"It's half-past two, boys. A westerly breeze is springing up, and I think you'd better go on to Fort Pelican," Doctor Joe suggested. "I'll give you a note to the factor instructing him to deliver all the things to you. You'll be able to make a good run before camping time.

Stop in here on your way back."

The boys made ready and said good-bye, spread the sails, and were soon running before a good breeze. Doctor Joe watched them disappear round the island, and returning to Lem's bedside asked:

"Lem, do you know what kind of a rifle Indian Jake carried?"

"I'm not knowin' rightly," said Lem. "'Twere either a forty-four or a thirty-eight. 'Twere he did the shootin'. n.o.body else has been comin'

about here the whole summer. I'm not doubtin' he's got my silver fox, and I'm goin' to get un back _whatever_. He'd never stop at shootin'

to rob, but he'll have to be quicker'n I be at shootin', to keep the fur!"

"When are you expecting Mrs. Horn and the boys back?" asked Doctor Joe.

"This evenin' or to-morrow whatever," said Lem. "They've been away these five days gettin' the winter outfit at Fort Pelican."

If Indian Jake were guilty, it was highly probable that he would take prompt steps to flee the country. He could not dispose of the silver fox skin in the Bay, for all the local traders had already seen and appraised it, and they would undoubtedly recognize it if it were offered them. Indian Jake would probably plunge into the interior, spend the winter hunting, and in the spring make his way to the St.

Lawrence, where he would be safe from detection.

Doctor Joe made these calculations while he sat by the bedside, and his patient dozed. He was sorry now that he had not sent the boys back to The Jug with a letter to Thomas explaining what had occurred. All the evidence pointed to Indian Jake's guilt, and there could be little doubt of it if it should prove that the half-breed carried a thirty-eight fifty-five rifle. Thomas would know, and he would take prompt action to prevent Indian Jake's escape with the silver fox skin. Should it prove, however, that Indian Jake's rifle was of different calibre, he should be freed from suspicion.

It was dusk that evening when the boat bearing Eli and Mark and Mrs.

Horn rounded the island. Doctor Joe met them. They had seen the boys and had received from them a detailed account of what had happened, and Mrs. Horn was greatly excited. Her first thought was for Lem, and she was vastly relieved when she saw him, as he declared he did not feel "so bad," and Doctor Joe a.s.sured her he would soon be around again and as well as ever.

Then there fell upon the family a full realization of their loss. The silver fox skin that had been stolen was their whole fortune. The proceeds of its sale was to have been their bulwark against need. It was to have given them a degree of independence, and above all else the little h.o.a.rd that its sale would have brought them was to have lightened Lem's burden of labour during his declining years.

Eli Horn was a big, broad-shouldered, swarthy young man of few words.

For an hour after he heard his father's detailed story of Indian Jake's visit to the cabin, he sat in sullen silence by the stove.

Suddenly he arose, lifted his rifle from the pegs upon which it rested against the wall, dropped some ammunition into his cartridge bag, and swinging it over his shoulder strode toward the door.

"Where you goin', Eli?" asked Lem from his bunk.

"To hunt Indian Jake," said Eli as he closed the door behind him and pa.s.sed out into the night.

CHAPTER VI

THE TRACKS IN THE SAND

A smart south-west breeze had sprung up. White caps were dotting the Bay, and with all sails set the boat bowled along at a good speed.

David held the tiller, while Andy and Jamie busied themselves with their handbooks. They were an hour out of Horn's Bight when David sighted the Horn boat beating up against the wind. Drawing within hailing distance he told them of the accident.

Mrs. Horn, greatly excited, asked many questions. David a.s.sured her that her husband's injuries were not serious, nevertheless she was quite certain Lem lay at death's door.

"'Tis the first time I leaves home in most a year," she lamented. "I were feelin' inside me 'twere wrong to go and leave Lem alone. And now he's gone and been shot and liker'n not most killed."

"'Tis too bad to make Mrs. Horn worry so. I'm wonderfully sorry,"

David sympathized, as the boats pa.s.sed beyond speaking distance.

"She'll worry now till they gets home, and the way Lem ate goose I'm thinkin' he ain't hurt bad enough to worry much about he."

"They'll get there to-night whatever," said Andy. "'Tis the way of Mrs. Horn to worry, even when we tells she Lem's doin' fine."

"I'm wonderin' and wonderin' who 'twere shot Lem," said David.

"Whoever 'twere had un in his heart to do murder."

"Whoever 'twere looked in through the window and saw Lem with the fine silver fox on the table and sets out to get the fox," reasoned Andy.

"The shootin' were done through the window where there's a pane of gla.s.s broke out."

"I sees where there's a pane of gla.s.s out," said David. "'Twas not fresh broke though."

"No, 'twere an old break," Andy agreed. "I goes to look at un, and I sees fresh tracks under the window where the man stands when he shoots."

"Tracks!" exclaimed David. "I never thought to look for tracks now! I weren't thinkin' of that! You thinks of more things than I ever does, Andy."

"I weren't thinkin' of tracks either," said Andy, disclaiming credit for their discovery. "Whilst you bakes the bread I just goes to look where the window is broke, and when I'm there I sees the strange-lookin' tracks."

"Strange, now! How was they strange?" asked Jamie excitedly, scenting a deepening mystery.

"They was made with boots with _nails_ in the bottom of un," explained Andy. "They was nails all over the bottom of them boots, and they was big boots, them was. They made big tracks--wonderful big tracks."

"'Tis strange, now! Did you trace un, Andy? Did you see what way the tracks goes?" asked David.

"'Twere only under the window where the ground were soft and bare of moss that the tracks showed the nails. I tracks un down though to where they comes in a boat and the boat goes again," Andy explained.