By the time I got back to Jake, he had his bed hammered up into position again.
He insisted that I, as his guest, should occupy it, while he would enjoy nothing so well as being allowed to curl himself up in a blanket on the floor, in the company of the convalescing Mike.
"Say, George!—before we turn in, I want you to write two letters for me. I ain't goin' to have no more hold-ups round this joint. Them ten thousand bucks is goin' to your bank;—what do you call it?"
"The Commercial Bank of Canada," I answered.
"Write a letter to them and ask them to send somebody up to take this darned chest away. A receipt looks good enough to me after this scrap."
He smoked his pipe reflectively as I wrote out the letter to the Bank Manager, asking him to send up two men to count over Jake's hoard and take it back with them, giving him a receipt to cover.
"Know any good lawyers, George? Most of them ginks are grafters from away back,—so I've heard,—but I guess maybe there's one or two could do a job on the level."
"Of course there are, Jake. Dow, Cross & Sneddon for instance. They are Mr. Horsfal's lawyers and solicitors. They are straight, honest business men, too."
"Guess they'll fill the bill, all right."
"What is on your mind, Jake?" I asked.
"Write them as well, George. Tell them to send up a man who can draw up a will. I ain't dead yet,—not by a damn' sight,—but some day I'll be as dead as a smelt, and what's the good o' havin' dough if you ain't got nobody to leave it to?"
"Good boy!" I cried, and I wrote out letter number two, asking the lawyers, if possible, to send their representative along with the Commercial Bank men, so that we could get the whole business fixed up and off-hand at the one time.
Next morning when I awoke, although it was still early, I found Jake already dressed. Not only that, but he was at the whisky-keg in the corner, filling up a cup.
"My God! Jake,—you don't mean to tell me you are back to that stuff?"
"Yep! I ain't preachin' tee-total any more after this."
My heart sank within me. This,—after all his fighting.
I remonstrated with him all I could.
"But, man alive!" I said, "this is the early morning. Are you crazy? You never drank in the mornings before. Wait till night time. Give yourself a chance to get pulled together. You'll be feeling different after a while.
"Think! What will Rita say? What will Miss Grant think? How will you be able to face Mr. Auld? They all know of the good fight you have been putting up.
"Jake,—Jake,—for shame! Throw the stuff out at the door."
Jake only shook his head more firmly.
"It ain't no good preachin', George, or gettin' sore,—for I've quit tryin'.
"What'n the hell's the good, anyway. The more you fight, the rawer a deal you get in the finish. Forget it! I'm drinkin' now whenever I'm good and ready; any old time at all and as much as I want,—and more."
I could do no more for him. It was Jake for it.
I stopped the southboundCloochmanthat afternoon and put Jake's letters aboard. Two days later, two clerks from the Commercial Bank and a young lawyer from Dow, Cross & Sneddon's came into Golden Crescent in a launch. I took them over to Jake Meaghan's. I introduced them, then busied myself outside while the necessary formalities were gone through, for I did not wish to be in any way connected with Jake's settlements. At last, however, the old fellow came to the door.
"George,—I guess you'd better take care o' them for me. That's my bank receipt. That's my death warrant," he grinned, "I mean my will. You're better'n me at lookin' after papers."
We carried the brass-bound trunk to the launch and waved it a fond farewell, without tears or regrets.
For two weeks, morning, noon and night, Jake indulged in a horror of a drinking bout.
The very thought of that orgy still sets my blood running cold.
We pleaded, we threatened; but of no avail. The minister even closeted himself with Jake for a whole afternoon without making the slightest impression on him.
It was always the same old remark:
"I've boozed for ten years and it ain't hurt me, so I guess I can booze some more."
And the strange feature of it was that the more he drank the more sober he seemed to become. He did his work as well as ever. His eyes retained their same innocent, baby-blue expression and his brain was as clear as a summer sky.
One Sunday forenoon, I was busy in the yard taking down my Saturday's washing from the clothes line, when Jake's dog, Mike, came tearing along the back path, making straight for me. That, in itself, was an unusual thing, for Mike never showed any violent affection for any one but Jake and he was more or less inclined to shun me altogether.
Now, he stood in front of me and barked. I kept on with my work. He followed every step I took and kept on barking and yelping excitedly, looking up into my face.
"What the dickens is the matter, old man?" I asked.
When he saw me interested in him, he turned and ran down toward the beach. I did not follow.
He came back and went through the same performance. Then he got angry and caught me by the foot of the overalls, trying to pull me in the direction he wanted.
It struck me then that an old stager, like Mike was, would not misbehave himself as he was doing for the mere fun of it. I left my newly dried clothes and followed him. He ran on ahead and into my boat, getting up on the side and barking toward Jake's place.
I became anxious. I pushed off hurriedly and rowed as hard as I could up the Bay in the direction of the cove.
As I was turning in at Jake's landing, Mike grew excited again, running to the right side of the stern and whining.
"What on earth can the dog mean?" I soliloquised, making up my mind to call in at the shack first, at any rate, and investigate.
But Mike jumped out of the boat and swam off further up, turning back to me every few yards and yelping.
The dog evidently knew more than I did, so I followed him.
He led me to Jake's favourite clam-hunting ground.
As soon as I turned into that little cove, I saw my old helper lying on his back on the beach. I pulled in and hurried over to him.
The dog was there before me, his tongue out and his tail wagging as if to say:
"It is all right now."
The old man's eyes were wide open and glazed. He was blowing stentoriously through his closed mouth and a white ooze was on the corners of his lips. His body was tense and rigid, as if it had been frozen solid in the Arctic snows.
Poor old Jake! I knew what had seized him. I had seen something of the trouble before.
I lifted him gently and carried him into the boat, pushing off and rowing as quickly as possible for his home.
I got him into bed, but it was an hour before he showed any signs of consciousness, for I could do nothing for him,—only sit and watch.
At last he recognised me and tried to talk, but his speech was thick and nothing but a jabber of sounds.
He cast his eyes down his right side as if to draw my attention to something. His eyes, somehow, seemed the only real live part of him. I examined him carefully and saw what he meant.
Poor fellow! Tears ran down my cheeks in pity for him.
His right side was numb and paralysed.
I hurried over to Mary's. She and Mrs. Malmsbury returned with me and attended him, hand and foot, until the minister came in late that afternoon.
Mr. Auld was a medical missionary, and he confirmed what I had feared. Jake had had a stroke.
The only articulate words Meaghan uttered in his mumblings were, "Rita, Rita, Rita." Again and again he came over the name. At last I promised him I would run over and bring her to him.
That seemed to content him, but his eyes still kept roving round restlessly.
Mr. Auld injected some morphine through Jake's arm in order to give his brain the rest that it evidently sorely needed.
"There is little we can do, George," said the minister. "He may be all right to-morrow, but for his physical helplessness;—and, even that may abate. Between you and me, I pray to God he may not live."
"But what can have caused it, Mr. Auld?"
"If Jake only could have been able to drink as other men do,—drink, get drunk and leave off,—he never would have come to this. His constitution was never made for such drinking as he has indulged in. No man's constitution is."
"Are you going to send him down to the city?" I asked.
"Not if you will bear with him here. It would do no good to move him. I would advise his remaining here. He will be happier, poor fellow. I shall run in early to-morrow."
I fetched Rita over that night and she remained with the old miner right along.
Her cheery presence brightened up the stricken man wonderfully.
Next day, he could talk more intelligibly and, with help, he got up and sat on a chair.
The Rev. William Auld called and left a jar containing some hideous little leeches in water. He gave me instructions that, if Jake took any sudden attack and the blood pressure in his head appeared great, I was to place two of these blood-sucking creatures on each of his temples, to relieve him.
He showed me how to fix them to the flesh.
"Once they are on, do not endeavour to pull them off," he explained. "When they have gorged themselves, they will drop off. After that, they will die unless you place them upon a dish of salt, when they will sicken and disgorge the blood they have taken. Then, if you put them back into a jar of fresh water, they will become lively as ever and will soon be ready for further use."
"I hope to God I may not have to use them," I exclaimed fervently, shuddering at the gruesome thoughts the sight of the hideous little reptiles conjured up in me.
And I was saved from having to participate in the disgusting operation, for, at the end of the week, Jake was seized through the night for the second time. Toward morning, he revived and spoke to Rita and me like the dear old Jake we used to know.
"Guess I got to pass in my checks, folks. I ain't been very good neither. But I ain't done nobody no harm as I can mind;—nobody, but maybe Jake Meaghan.
"Say, George! You like me,—don't you?"
"I like you for the real gentleman you are, Jake," I answered, laying my hand on his brow.
"You like me too, Rita,—don't you?"
"You bet I do!" she replied, dropping back into the slang that Jake best understood.
He was happy after that and smiled crookedly. But, in the early morning, a violent fit of convulsions, in all its contorting agonies, caught hold of him. His head at last dropped back on Rita's arm and Jake Meaghan was no more.
I covered up his face with a sheet, and we closed the door, leaving the faithful Mike alone by the bedside.
I led the little, sorrowing Rita down to her boat and kissed her as I sent her across the Bay, home. Then, with a leaden heart, I went back, to sit disconsolately in my own cottage, feeling as if I had lost a part of myself in losing my old, eccentric, simple-minded friend.
I opened up the papers Jake had left in my care and, as I read his will, it made me feel how little I knew of him after all and what a strange way he had of working out his ideas to what he considered their logical conclusion.
His will was a short document, and quite clear.
He wished to be buried in Vancouver. All he possessed, he left to Rita 'because Rita was always a good girl.' If Rita married George Bremner, the ten thousand dollars lying in the bank was to become her own, under her immediate and full control; but, should she marry any other man, or should she remain unmarried for a period of three years from Jake's death, this money was to be invested for her in the form of an annuity, in a reliable insurance company whose name was mentioned.
He left Mike, the dog, to the care of George Bremner.
The more I thought over that will, the more I cogitated over what was really at the back of Jake's mind.
Did he think, in some way, that there was an understanding between Rita and me? or, as probably was more likely, was it an unexpressed desire of his that Rita,—my little, mercurial pupil, Rita,—and I should marry and settle down somewhere at Golden Crescent?
Alas! for old Jake. Who knows what was in that big, wayward heart of his?
Mike kept faithful watch over Jake's body, until they came to take it away. He neither ate nor slept. He just lay on the floor, with his head resting on his front paws and his eyes riveted on the bed where Jake was.
We had to throw a blanket over Mike and hold him down bodily before the undertakers could remove his dead master.
All the way out to the steamer, we could hear Mike's dismal howling. Never did such cries come from any dog. They did not seem the howls of a brute, but the wailings of a human soul that was slowly being torn to shreds.
My heart ached more for that poor creature than it did even for Jake.
All afternoon, all through that first night and still in the early hours of the next morning, the dog sobbed and wailed as if its more-than-human heart were breaking.
At last, I could stand the strain no longer. I went down with some food and drink for him and in the hope that I would be able to pacify him and comfort him in his loss. But the moment I opened the door, he tore out, as if possessed, down on to the beach and into the water. Out, out he went, in the direction the steamer had gone the day before.
I got into Jake's boat and followed him as quickly as I could, but we were a long way out before I got up with him,—swimming strongly, gamely, almost viciously; on,—on,—heading for the Ghoul Rock and for the cross-currents at the open sea.
I reached alongside him, but always he sheered away.
I spoke to him kindly and coaxingly, but all I got from him in reply was a whimpering sob, as if to say:—
"Oh! you are only a human: how can you understand?"
I succeeded in catching hold of him and I lifted him into the boat. He struggled out of my grasp back into the water. Three times I brought him in and three times he broke from me and plunged into the sea, swimming always out and out.
I had not the heart to trouble him any more.
After all, what right had I to interfere? What right had I to try to go between the soul of a man and the soul of a dog?
"God speed!—you brave, old, lion-hearted Mike. God speed!" I cried. "Go to him. You were two of a kind. May you soon catch up with him, and may both of you be happy."
I did not engage any one to fill Jake's place, for I felt that no man really could fill it. In any case, with the approach of the wet, wintry weather, the work at Golden Crescent diminished. I did not have the continuous supplies to make ready for the Camps, such as they demanded in the summer months. When they called, they generally took away enough to last them over several weeks. Again, Jake had cut, sawn and stacked all my winter supply of firewood long before he took sick.
Taking all these things into consideration, I decided I would go through the winter, at least, without fresh help.
Mary Grant and Mrs. Malmsbury still remained at the cottage over the way.
Often I asked Mary,—almost in dread,—if she were going away during the stormier months, but she always said she had not made any arrangements so far.
Not once, but many times, I tried to break through the reserve which she had hedged round herself ever since our evening in the lagoon after our first fishing experience when we had drawn so near in sympathy to each other. I felt afraid lest I should forget myself some time and tell her all that was in my heart craving to be told, for something kept whispering to me that, if I did, I might lose her altogether.
Rita's lessons went on apace. Twice a week she came over in the evenings for instruction. She was quickly nearing the point where I would be of no further service, for I had imparted to her almost all I was capable of imparting in the way of actual grammar.
I hoped to be able to complete her course before Christmas came round. Then it would be merely a question of selection of reading matter.
Rita's manner of speaking had undergone a wonderful change. There were no slangy expressions now; no "ain'ts" or "I guess"; no plural nouns with singular verbs; no past participles for the past tense; no split infinitives. To all intents and purposes, Rita Clark had taken a course of instruction at a good grammar school.
And what a difference it made in her, generally! Even her dress and her deportment seemed to have changed with her new manner of speaking.
It is always so. The forward progress in any one direction means forward progress in almost every other.
Rita was a sweet, though still impetuous, little maiden that any cultured man might have been proud to have for a wife.
One rainy night, she and I were sitting by the stove in my front room. I was in an easy chair, with a book in my hand, while Rita was sitting in front of me on a small, carpet-covered stool, leaning sideways against my legs and supposedly doing some paraphrasing. A movement on her part caused me to glance at her.
She had turned and was staring toward the window and her eyes were growing larger and larger every moment. Her face grew pale, while her lips parted and an expression, akin to fear, began to creep into her eyes.
I turned my head hurriedly to the window, but all was dark over there and the rain was pattering and splashing against the glass.
Still, Rita sat staring, although the look of fear had gone.
I laid my hand on her shoulder.
"Rita, Rita!—what in the world is wrong?"
"Oh, George,—I,—I saw Joe's face at the window. I never saw him look so angry before," she whispered nervously.
I laughed.
"Why!—you foolish little woman, I looked over there almost as soon as you did, but I saw no one."
"But he was there, I tell you," she repeated.
I rose to go to the door.
"No, no!" she cried. "Don't go."
But I went, nevertheless, throwing the door wide open and getting a gust of wind and rain in my face as I peered out into the night.
I closed the door again and came back to Rita.
"Why! silly little girl, you must have dreamed it. There is no one there."
I tapped her on the cheek.
"I did not know Rita Clark was nervous," I bandied.
She looked dreamily into the fire for a while, then she turned round to me and laid her cheek against my knee.
"George!—Joe's been coming home more and more of late. He's been lots nicer to me than he used to be. He brought me a gold brooch with pearls in it, from Vancouver, to-day."
"Good for him!" I remarked.
"It was a lovely brooch," she went on. "I put it in my dress, it looked so pretty. Then Joe asked me to go with him along the beach. Said he wanted to talk to me. I went with him, and he asked me if I would marry him.
"Marry him, mind you!—and I have known him all my life.
"He said he didn't know he loved me till just a little while ago. Said it was all a yarn about the other girls he met.
"He was quiet, and soft as could be. I never saw Joe just the way he was to-day. But I don't feel to Joe as I used to. He has sort of killed the liking I once had for him.
"I got angry about the brooch then. I took it off and handed it back to him.
"'Here's your brooch, Joe,' I said. 'I didn't know you gave it to me just to make me marry you. I don't love you, Joe, and I won't marry a man I don't love. You mustn't ask me again. You get somebody else.'
"Big Joe was just like a baby. His face turned white.
"'You're in love with Bremner,' he said, catching me by the wrist. I drew myself away.
"'I'm not,' I said. 'I like him better than I like any other man,—you included,—but I don't love him any more than he loves me.'"
Rita looked up at me and her eyes filled with tears.
"'Ain't Bremner in love with you?' Joe asked.
"'No!' I said.
"Then Joe got terribly mad.
"'By God in Heaven!' he cried, 'I'll kill that son-of-a-gun, if I hang for it!'
"He meant you, George. He went off into the wood, leaving me standing like a silly.
"Say! George,—the way Joe said that, makes me afraid that some day he will kill you."
"Don't you worry your little head about that, Rita," I said.
"Oh!—that's all very well,—but Joe Clark's a big man. He's the strongest man on the coast. He's always in some mix-up and he always comes out on top. And I'm more afraid for you, because you are not afraid of him."
I rowed Rita across home that evening in order to reassure her, and, on our journey, neither sound nor sign did we experience of Joe Clark.
When the time came again for her next lesson, Rita seemed to have forgotten her former fears.
I had fixed up a blind over the window and had drawn it down, so that no more imaginary peering faces would disturb the harmony of our lesson and our conversation.
How long we sat there by the stove, I could not say; but Rita was soft, and gentle, and tender that night,—sweet, suppliant and loving. She was all woman.
When our lesson was over, she sat at my feet as usual. She crossed her fingers over my knee and rested her cheek there, with a sigh of contentment.
I stroked her hair and passed my fingers through the long strands of its black, glossy darkness, and I watched the pretty curves of her red, sensitive lips.
"Rita! Rita!" I questioned in my heart, as her big eyes searched mine, "I wonder, little maid, what this big world has in store for you? God grant that it be nothing but good."
I bent down and kissed her once,—twice,—on those soft and yielding upturned lips.
With terrifying suddenness, something crashed against my front window and broken glass clattered on the floor.
A great hand and arm shot through the opening and tore my window blind in strips from its roller. And then the hand and arm were withdrawn.
In the visual illusion caused by the strong light inside and the deep darkness without, we saw nothing but that great hand and arm.
I sprang up and rushed to the door, followed by Rita.
There was no sign of any one about. I ran round the house, and scanned the bushes; I went down on to the beach, then across the bridge over the creek, but I failed to detect the presence of any man.
I came back to Rita to ease her mind, and found her anxious yet wonderfully calm.
"George!—you need not tell me,—it was Joe. I know his hand and arm when I see them. He is up to something.
"Oh! You must be careful. Promise me you will be careful?"
I gave her my word, then I set her in her boat for home, asking her to wait for a moment until I should return.
Before setting her out on her journey, I wished to make perfectly sure that there was no one about. I again crossed the creek, past Mary's house, which was in complete darkness, and down on to her beach. There, hiding in the shelter of the rocks, was a launch, moored to one of the rings which Jake had set in at convenient places just for the purpose it was now being used.
I ran out and examined it. It was Joe Clark's.
So!—I thought,—he is still on this side.
I returned to Rita, wished her good-night and pushed her out on the water.
I came leisurely up the beach, keeping my eyes well skinned. But, after a bit, I began to laugh, chiding myself for my childish precautions.
I went into the kitchen, took an empty bucket in each hand and set out along the back path for a fresh supply of water for my morning requirements, to the stream, fifty yards in the wood, where I had hollowed out a well and boarded it over.
It was dark, gloomy and ghostly in the woods there, for the moon was stealing fitfully under the clouds and through the tall firs, throwing strange shadows about.
I had almost reached the well, when I heard a crackling of dead wood to my right.
A huge, agile-looking figure pushed its way through, and Joe Clark stood before me, blocking my path.
He held two, roughly cut clubs, one in each hand. His sleeves were rolled up over his tremendous arms; his shirt was open at the neck, displaying, even in the uncertain moonlight, a great, hairy, massive chest over which muscles and sinews crawled.
I scanned his face. His jaw was set, his lips were a thin line, his eyes were gleaming savagely and a mane of fair hair was falling in a clump over his brow. He looked dishevelled and was evidently labouring under badly suppressed excitement.
"Where's Rita?" he growled.
I put my buckets aside and took my pipe from between my teeth.
"Half-way home by this time, I hope," I said.
"She is,—eh!" he cut in sarcastically. "Guess so! Look here, Bremner,—what'n the hell's your game with Rita, anyway?"
I went straight up to him.
I did not want to quarrel. Not that I was afraid of him, even knowing, as I did, that I would be likely to get much the worse of any possible encounter;—but, for Rita's sake, I preferred peace.
"My good fellow," I said, "why in heaven's name can't you talk sense? I have no game, as you call it, with Rita.
"If you would only play straight with her, you might get her yourself. But I'll tell you this,—skulking around other people's property, after the skirts of a woman, never yet brought a man anything but rebuffs."
"Aw!—cut out your damned yapping, Bremner," he yelled furiously. "Who the hell wants any of your jaw? Play straight the devil! You're some yellow cuss to talk to anybody about playin' straight."
It was all I could do to keep my temper in check.
"What d'ye bring her over to your place at night for, if you're playin' straight?" he continued.
"To teach her grammar;—that's all," I exclaimed.
"Grammar be damned," he thundered. "What d'ye put up blinds for if you're playin' straight?"
"To keep skulkers from seeing how respectable people spend their evenings," I shot at him.
"You're a confounded liar," he yelled, beside himself. "I know what you're up to, with your oily tongue and your Jim Dandy style.
"Rita was mine before you ever set your damned dial in Golden Crescent. She'd 've been mine for keeps by this time, but you got her goin'. Now you're usin' her to pass the time, keepin' men who want to from marryin' her."
With a black madness inside me, I sprang in on him. He stepped aside.
"No, you don't!" he cried. "Take that."
He threw one of his clubs at my feet.
"Fists ain't no good this trip, Mister Man. I was goin' to kill you, but I thought maybe it'd look better if we fight and let the best man win."
I stood undecided, looking first at this great mountain of infuriated humanity and then at the club he had tossed to me;—while around us were the great trees, the streams of ghostly moonlight and the looming blacknesses.
"Come on!—damn you for a yellow-gut. Take that up before I open your skull with this."
He prodded me full in the chest with the end of his weapon. I needed no second bidding. Evidently, it was he or I for it.
In fact, since the moment we first met at Golden Crescent that had been the issue with which I had always been confronted. Joe Clark or George Bremner!—one of us had to go down under the heel of the other.
I grabbed up the club and stood on guard for the terrific onslaught Joe immediately made on me.
He threw his arm in the air and came in on me like a mad buffalo. Had the blow he aimed ever fallen with all its original force, these lines never would have been written; but its strength was partly shorn by the club coming in contact with the overhanging branch of a tree.
I parried that blow, but still it beat down my guard and the club grazed my head.
I gave ground before Clark, as I tried to find an opening. I soon discovered, however, that this was not a fight where one could wait for openings. Openings had to be made, and made quickly. I threw caution to the winds. I drew myself together and rushed at him as he had rushed at me. His blow slanted off my left shoulder, numbing my arm to the finger-tips. Mine got home on a more vital place: it caught him sheer on the top of the head.
I thought, for sure, I had smashed his skull. But no such luck; Joe Clark's bones were too stoutly made and knit.
He gasped and staggered back against a tree for a second, looking dazed as he wiped a flow of blood from his face.
"For God's sake, man," I shouted, "let us quit this."
He laughed derisively.
"The hell you say! Quit,—nothin'; not till one of us quits for keeps."
He rallied and came at me once more, but with greater wariness than previously. He poked at me and jabbed at me. I warded him off, keeping on the move all the time. He swung sideways on me, but I parried easily; then, with a fierce oath, he caught his club with both hands, raised it high in the air and brought it down with all his sledge-hammer strength.
This time, I was ready for Joe Clark. I was strong. Oh!—I knew just how strong I was, and I gloried in my possession.
I had a firmer grip of my cudgel than before. There was going to be no breaking through as he had done last time; not if George Bremner's right arm was as good as he thought it was.
I met that terrific crash at the place I knew would tell. With the crack of a gun-shot, his club shivered into a dozen splinters against mine, leaving him with nothing but a few inches of wood in his torn hands.
He stood irresolute.
"Will you quit now?" I cried.
But he was game. "Not on your life," he shouted back. "We ain't started yet. Try your damnedest."
He tossed aside the remainder of his club and jumped at me with his great hands groping. I stepped back and threw my stick deliberately far into the forest, then I stopped and met him with his own weapons. After all, I was now on a more equal footing with him than I had been when both of us were armed.
We clinched, and locked together. We turned, and twisted, and struggled. He had the advantage over me in weight and sheer brute strength, but I had him shaded when it came to knowing how to use the strength I possessed.
We smashed at each other with our fists wherever and whenever we found an opening. Our clothes were soon in ribbons. Blood spurted from us as it would from stuck pigs.
Gasping for breath with roaring sounds,—choking,—half-blind, we staggered and swayed, smashing into trees and over bushes.
At last I missed my footing and stumbled over a protruding log, falling backward. Still riveted together,—Joe Clark came with me. The back of my head struck, with a sickening crash, into a tree and I knew no more.
When consciousness came back to me, I groaned for a return of the blessed sleep from which I had awakened, for every inch of my poor body was a racking agony.
A thousand noises drummed, and thumped, and roared in my head and the weight of the entire universe seemed to be lying across my chest.
I struggled weakly to free myself, and, as I recollected gradually what had happened to me, I put out my hands. They came in contact with something cold and clammy.
It was the bloody face of Joe Clark, who was lying on top of me.
I wriggled and struggled with the cumbersome burden that had been strangling the flickering life in me. Every effort, every turn was a new pain, but all my hope was in getting free.
At last, I got from under him and staggered to my knees. I was a very babe for weakness then. I clutched at the tree-trunk for support and raised myself to my feet. I looked down on the pale face of Joe Clark, as he lay there, the moon on his face disclosing a great open gash on his forehead.
Evidently, he had struck the tree, face on, with the same impact as I had done backward.
"Oh, God!" I groaned. "He is dead, ... Joe Clark is..."
Then the blissful mists and darknesses came over me again and I crumpled to the earth.
When next I awoke, it was amid conflicting sensations of pains and pleasantnesses. My eyes gradually took in my surroundings. Instead of being in Heaven, or the other place of future abode as I fully expected to be, I was lying on my own bed, in my own room, in a semi-darkness.
A quiet, shadowlike form was flitting about. I followed it with my eyes for a while, enjoying the fact that it did not know that I was watching it. Then it tip-toed toward me and bent over me.
All my doubts and fears departed. After all, I was in Heaven; for Mary,—the Mary I so loved,—was bending over me, crooning to me, with her face so near, and placing her cooling, soothing hand on my hot brow.
I must have tried to speak, for, as if far away, I could hear her enjoining me not to talk, but just lie quiet and I would soon be well.
She put a spoon to my mouth and, sup by sup, something warm, good and reviving slowly found its way down my throat.
What hard work it was opening my lips! What a dreadful task it was to swallow and how heavy my feet and hands seemed!—so heavy, I could not lift them.
As the singing voice crooned and hushed me, I grew, oh! so weary of the labour of swallowing and breathing that I dropped away again into glorious slumberland.
When again I opened my eyes, it was evening. My reading lamp was burning dimly on a table, near by. The air was warm from a crackling fire in the stove. Some one was kneeling at my bedside.
I looked along the sheets that covered me.
It was Mary.
All I could see of her head were the coils of her golden hair, for she had my hand in both her own and her face was hidden on the bed-spread. I could hear her voice whispering softly. She was praying. She repeated my name ever so often. She was praying that I might be allowed to live.
From that moment I lived and grew stronger. But I dared not move in case I might disturb her.
She rose at last and bent over my bandaged head. She scrutinised my face. As she leaned closer, I caught the fragrance of her breath and the perfume of her hair. And then,—God forgive me for my deceit! although, for such an ecstasy I would go on being deceitful to the end of time,—she stooped lower and her full, soft, warm lips touched mine.
I raised my eyelids to her blushing loveliness. I tried to smile, but she put her finger up demanding silence. She fed me again and new strength flowed through my veins.
What questions I asked her then! How did I get here? What day of the week was it? Was Joe Clark dead?
"Hush, hush!" she chided. "You must go on sleeping."
"But I can't sleep forever. Already I have been asleep for years," I complained feebly.
"Hush, then, and I will tell you."
She sat down by my bedside and I lay still and quiet as she went over what she knew.
"This is Saturday evening. I found you, lying unconscious,—dead as I thought,—out on the path, as I went for fresh water yesterday morning.
"I brought you here. I did not know what had befallen you. I was afraid you had been set upon by the thieves who tried to rob Jake Meaghan; but from what you have just said, it was Superintendent Clark who attacked you."
I nodded.
"Was he not lying there beside me,—dead?" I asked.
"Hush! There was no one near you; but the place looked as if a herd of buffalo had thundered over it."
I was puzzled, but I tried to laugh and the attempt hurt me.
"How did you get me here?" I interrupted.
"Now!" she said, "if you speak again, I will tell you nothing.
"I ran home for blankets. I got two poles and fixed the blankets to these. I rolled you over on to my improvised stretcher and trailed you here, Indian fashion. It was easy as easy. Mrs. Malmsbury was abed and I did not wish to disturb her just then. Later, when I got you here, she helped me to put you to bed.
"Oh! I am so glad that man did not murder you."
"But it would not have been murder, Mary," I put in. "It was a fair fight."
"But why should two, strong, clean-living young men want to fight? Don't answer me, George," she added quickly, "for I am merely cogitating. Men seem such strange animals to us women."
I smiled.
Other questions I asked, but Mary declined to answer and I had, perforce, to lie still, with nothing to do but follow her with my eyes wherever she went.
For one more day, she kept me on my back, bullying me and tyrannising over me, when I felt strong enough to be up and about my business.
Sometimes, when she came near enough, I would lay my hand over hers. She would permit the caress as if she were indulging a spoiled baby. Sometimes, I would lie with my eyes closed in the hope that she might be tempted to kiss me, as she had done before; but Mary Grant saw through the pretence and declined to become a party to it.
The Rev. Mr. Auld came during the early afternoon of that Sunday. He examined my bruises and contusions with professional brutality. He winked, and ordered me up, dressed and into a wicker chair,—for the lazy, good-for-nothing rascal that I was. And,—God bless his kindly old heart!—he told Mary I might smoke, in moderation.
He did not remain long, for he said he had been called to attend another and a very urgent case of a malady similar to mine, at Camp No. 2.
"Why!—that's Joe Clark's Camp," I said.
"I am well aware of the fact," said he. "If you ask any more questions or venture any more information, I shall order you back to bed and I shall cancel your smoking permit."
As he was going off, he came over to me and whispered in my ear:—
"Man!—I would give something for the power of your right arm."
All the remainder of that afternoon, Mary read to me, as I browsed [Transcriber's note: drowsed?] in an easy chair among cushions and rugs, stretching first one leg and then the other, testing my arms, trying every joint, every finger and toe, to satisfy myself that I was still George Bremner, complete in every detail.
Just as Mary was preparing to say good-bye to my little place, late that same day,—for her vigils over me were no longer necessary,—Rita Clark ran in, flushed with hurried rowing and labouring under a strong excitement. She flashed defiance at Mary, then she threw herself at my feet and sobbed as if her little heart would break.
I put my hand on her head and tried to comfort her, and, when I looked up again, she and I were alone.
"Rita, Rita!" I admonished.
"Oh!—no one told me," she wailed. "And it was all my fault. I know I should not have come when Joe was that way about it.
"If he had killed you! Oh! George,—if he had killed you!"
Her eyes were red from weeping and dread still showed in her expressive face.
"There, there," I comforted. "He did not kill me, Rita, so why worry?
"I shall be back at work in the store to-morrow, same as before. Cheer up, little girl!"
"But nobody at the Camp can understand it," she went on with more composure. "They all knew there had been a fight. They were sure you had been killed, for nobody ever stands up against Joe without coming down harder than he does, and they say Joe was pretty nearly done for."
"How is he now?" I inquired, inquisitive to know if he were suffering at least some of what I had suffered.
"Mr. Auld just came in as I left. Joe's been unconscious for two days."
"Good!" I exclaimed, almost in delight.
Rita's face expressed a chiding her tongue refused to give.
"He only came to, when the minister got there this afternoon. Joe's arm is broken. Two of his ribs are stove in. He's bruised and battered all over. Mr. Auld says the hole in his forehead is the serious one. Thinks you must have uprooted a tree and hit him with it."
I laughed. But Rita was still all seriousness.
"He'll pull through all right. Minister says he'll be out in two or three weeks. Says it's a miracle how Joe ever got back to Camp. Must have crawled to the launch, looked after the engine and steered all the way himself, and him smashed up as he was. Funny he didn't come over home. Guess he didn't want any of us to know about it.
"They found his boat run up on the beach at Camp and him lying in the bottom of it, unconscious; engine of his boat still going full speed.
"Joe was delirious and muttering all the time:
"'I killed that son-of-a-gun, Bremner. I killed Bremner.'
"You know, George,—most of the men like Joe; for he's good to them when they're down and out. But none of them has much sympathy for him this time. Mr. Auld says they have heard him talk about doing you up ever since you came to Golden Crescent. And now, Joe's the man that's done up.
"Better for him if he had let you be.
"But, maybe after all, it is the best thing that ever happened,—for Joe, I mean. It will let him see that brute force isn't everything; that there never was a strong man but there was a stronger one still. Eh! George."
Rita's mood changed.
"But, if you and Joe quarrel again, I'm going to run away. So there.
"I'm not beholden to any one now,—thanks to dear old Jake Meaghan. I can get money,—all I want. Then maybe Joe'll be sorry.
"You won't fight any more, George? Say you won't!"
She put her arm round my shoulder and her cheek against mine, in her old coaxing way.
Dear little woman! It was a shame to have worried her as Joe and I had done.
"Well, Rita," I laughed, "I promise you I won't fight if Joe won't. And, anyway,—Joe is not likely to seek another encounter till his arm and ribs are well; and that will take six weeks all told. So don't worry yourself any more about what is going to happen six weeks hence."
As Rita started out for home, I rose to accompany her to the boat.
"No, no!" she cried. "Why!—you are under doctor's orders."
"I have to work to-morrow, Rita, so I might as well try myself out now, as later."
I was shaky at the knees, but, with Rita's arm round my waist, I managed to make the journey with little trouble.
As we got to her boat, Rita pouted.
"What's the matter now, little maid?" I asked.
"I don't think you like me any more, George,—after bringing this on you. And we've been pretty good pals too, you and I."
Her eyes commenced to fill.
"Why, foolish! Of course, we have been good pals and we are going to stay good pals right to the end; no matter what happens."
"Sure?" she asked, taking an upward, sidelong glance at me.
"Sure as that," I exclaimed. I put my hands round her trim waist, and, weak as I was, I lifted her up from the ground and kissed her laughing mouth.
She struggled free, jumped into the boat and rowed away, with a laugh and a blown kiss to me from her finger tips.
As I turned, I cast my eyes up along the wharf.
A figure was standing there, motionless, as if hewn in stone.
It was Mary Grant.
Her hands were pressed flat against her bosom as if she were trying to stifle something that should not have been there. Her face wore a strange coldness that I had never seen in it before.
I could not understand why it should be so,—unless,—unless she had misconstrued the good-bye of Rita and me. But, surely,—surely not!
Slowly and laboriously, I made in her direction, but she sped away swiftly down the wharf, across the rustic bridge and into her cottage, closing the door behind her quickly.
As I sat by the fireside, thinking over what possibly could have caused Mary to behave so, something spoke to me again and again, saying:—
"Go over and find out. Go over and find out."
But I did not obey. My conscience felt clear of all wrong intent and I decided it would be better to wait till morning, when I would be more fit for the ordeal and Mary would have had time for second thoughts.
Had I only known what the decision meant to me; the hours of mental torment, the suspense, the dread loneliness, I would have obeyed the inner voice and hastened to Mary's side that very moment, stripping all wrong ideas and wrong impressions of their deceitful garments, leaving them bare and cold and harmless.
I did not know, and, for my lack of knowledge or intuition, I had to suffer the consequences.
Later in the evening, a yacht put into the Bay. It carried some ladies and gentlemen who had been on a trip to Alaska and were now returning south.
They called in for a few supplies, the getting of which I merely supervised. They asked and obtained permission from me to tie up at the wharf for the night.
After they had returned aboard and just as I was laboriously undressing, I heard music floating across from Mary's. It was the same sweet, entrancing, will-o'-the wisp music that her touch always created.
But to-night, she played the shadowy, mysterious, light and elusive Ballade No. 3 of Chopin. How well I knew the story and how sympathetically Mary followed it in her playing! till I could picture the scenes and the characters as if they were appearing before me on a cinema screen:—the palace, the forest and the beautiful lake; the knight and the strange, ethereal lady; the bewitchment; the promise; the new enchantress, the lure of the dance, the lady's flight and the knight's pursuit over the marshes and out on to the lake; the drowning of the unfaithful gallant and the mocking laugh of the triumphant siren.
The music swelled and whispered, sobbed and laughed, thundered and sighed at the call of the wonderful musician who translated it.
I was bewitched by the playing, almost as the knight had been by the ethereal lady of the music-story.
Suddenly the music ceased. I thought Mary had retired to rest. But again, on the night air, came the introduction to the little ballad I had already heard her sing in part. Her voice, with its plaintive sweetness, broke into melody.
She lilted softly the first verse,—and I waited.
She sang the second verse. Again I waited, wondering, then hoping and longing that she would continue.
The third verse came at last and—I regretted its coming.