CHAPTER XXVIIISAM MAKES CHOICE
The long night had dragged to an end. A pale glimmer at the windows told of the coming of a clouded dawn, while outside the old house the storm raged in unabated violence.
Sam, awakening from a doze, replenished the fire. The other boys were still sleeping, each in the posture which, to his notion, minimized the hardship of a bed of rough planks. The Shark was rolled up like a ball; Step lay flat on his back, his long arms and legs sprawling; the Trojan had pillowed his head on Herman Boyd’s shoulder; Poke, his forehead resting on his arm, was breathing very regularly and audibly; Tom Orkney, a little apart from the others, was stirring restlessly.
Lon was sitting beside Peter Groche, for whom the remnants of the old carpet and the bags from the shed served as a mattress. Peter was either ill or shamming artfully. Lon and the boys had had a hard time withhim during the night; for though at intervals he lay in what seemed to be a stupor, these had been separated by quarter-hours and half-hours in which he writhed and struggled and cried out deliriously. They had done the little they could for him; and Lon had remained on duty as combined guard and nurse.
Sam dropped beside his ally.
“Well, how is he?” he whispered.
“Dunno,” Lon answered dubiously. “If he was anybody else, I’d call him a mighty sick man. Bein’ Peter Groche, mebbe he’s soldierin’. He’d be powerful glad to get away—don’t lose sight o’ that.”
Sam bent over the suspect. Groche’s face was flushed; his breathing was labored.
“Certainly he’s feverish, Lon. And he couldn’t feign that, could he?”
“Umph! I ain’t no doctor.”
“Wish you were!”
“So do I,” said Lon. “As ’tis, I dunno—the pair of us went through enough to send some folks to hospital, what with that rassle and then the tramp through the drifts. And I did hammer him up—had to, or he’d ’a’ done for me. Clear case o’ survival of the fittest—fellerthat fit hardest, you know. And I ain’t in what you’d call the pink o’ condition myself. Sam, I’m as stiff as a bunch o’ ramrods, and I ain’t got a j’int that feels as if it had been greased in a coon’s age. That’s one trouble—I don’t dare take chances with him. If he got two jumps’ lead, I’d never catch him. And for all his takin’s on, and his wild yellin’, and them fever signs—wal, jest remember he’s as tough as an oak knot and as crafty as a fox. And he’s got the biggest kind o’ cause to bolt, if he can. Arson’s a state prison job, sonny.”
“So I suppose. Only”—Sam hesitated—“only that wouldn’t be ground for failing to call a doctor or—or carrying him to one.”
Lon listened for a moment to the shriek of the gale.
“You’re right enough, Sam,” he admitted. “But he can’t be took out—not in a blizzard like this, ’specially as we don’t know where to take him. And as for tryin’ to go for a doctor—wal, it’d be risky, mighty risky. I ain’t in shape, but I wouldn’t dare leave that wildcat with you boys, anyhow. And as for sendin’ any of you, that’d be a big risk, too. ’Tain’t’sif we knew where we were, you know; and I’d hate to take chances o’ losin’ worth-while youngsters for the sake o’ that critter.”
“But can’t anything be done?”
“We can wait for the storm to blow itself out.”
“But how long will that be?”
“Dunno. The big blizzard of ’88 done business for three days.”
Sam rose. He tiptoed to the door, and peered through a yawning crack beside it. Then he came back to Lon.
“I can’t see much change, except that the clouds are not quite so low or so heavy. And it’s colder than ever.”
“Like enough! Nor’easter shiftin’ to nor’wester.”
Sam took thought, and while he deliberated, Step awoke, sat up, yawned loudly. Poke followed suit, and in a moment more Herman Boyd and the Trojan were rubbing their eyes. Then the Shark uncoiled himself. Last of all Orkney shook off his slumbers.
Sam turned again to Lon.
“Look here!” he said in a low tone. “We can’t stay here three days.”
“Probably we won’t have to.”
“That’s too uncertain. We’ll have to do something. We haven’t a crumb of food, and we’re half starved.”
Lon nodded sympathetically. “I know, I know! If I had a hedgehog here, right now, I’d eat him raw, quills and all.”
Again Sam studied the flushed face of Peter Groche.
“Lon, thereissomething to do!” he said. “We’ve got to do it. We’ve got to send out an expedition for help.”
“But, Sam, I tell you I ain’t fit, and——”
“You’re to stay here, and watch Groche.”
“But who’ll go?”
“Two of the crowd.”
“Countin’ yourself one of ’em?”
“Certainly! And I’ll pick the other.”
With an effort Lon got upon his feet. He limped across the room and back again.
“No use, Sam!” he groaned. “I’d stall worse’n a balkin’ mule in the fust forty yards. No; you’ll have to give up the notion.”
“But my notion is that you’re to stay here, and watch Groche.”
“All right—but you’ll stay, too. I’d beplumb crazy to let you go. ’Tain’t ’sif we had the lay o’ theland. If we had, ’twouldn’t be so much like startin’ from nowhere for nowhere, in a blizzard, and with the thermometer ’way below zero.”
“But we do know where we’ll start from—that is, we have a general idea.”
“Eh?”
“Wait a minute!” said Sam. “This is Calleck’s house, isn’t it?”
“Ain’t any doubt o’ that, but——”
“But Calleck’s house stands near the South Fork. Don’t you remember what the lumberman said? Don’t you know he told us Calleck started to build with stone, but finished the house any way he could? And doesn’t that description fit this place?”
“It sure does. This is Calleck’s cabin, fast enough. Still——”
Again Sam interrupted: “You know—in a general way, as I say—how the South Fork runs?”
“Y-e-s,” Lon admitted reluctantly. “Empties into Blake’s River right at Coreytown.”
“Exactly! And the lumberjack said the house was about ten miles from the camp.Now, I’ve been trying to figure out the map, as the Shark would figure it, and I don’t believe we’re three miles from the village.”
The Shark had caught the mention of his name; also he had grasped the problem presented.
“Three miles?” he repeated. “Huh! good enough—as a guess. Of course, I don’t call that figuring. If you’ll give me the true distances——”
“Never mind, Shark!” said Sam promptly. “We’ll waive decimals and let it go at three miles, more or less. Then all we’ll have to do will be to find the South Fork, and follow the valley down-stream. And there’s a doctor at Coreytown, I’m sure; and the people won’t have to be asked twice to help us out.”
Lon rubbed his chin. “Umph! There is a grain o’ sense in the scheme. Say, though, Sam! Where’s that Safety First idea you uster have on your mind?”
“It’s there now—Safety First for the whole crowd!”
Lon glanced at Groche. The light was strengthening, and the alarming appearance of the man’s face was undeniable. A verysick man was Peter Groche, at least to the eye of a layman.
“Jiminy, but something’s got to be tried!” Lon confessed. “And followin’ the South Fork would be different from stragglin’ aimless. I dunno, I dunno!”
Sam pressed his advantage. “I do know, then. And Lon! The quicker I start, the better.”
“I reckon that’s true,” said Lon slowly. “Yes; if you’re dead sot to go, there’s no good in lingerin’. And you’re as husky as any of the boys. But who’ll you be takin’ with you?”
As one the club stepped forward, and volunteered.
“Choose me, Sam!”
“No; I’m the one!”
“Here, I’m your man!”
“Say! I’ve got a right to go!”
“Cut it out! He wants me, I tell you!”
They rained their appeals upon him, the Shark last but not the least earnest:
“Take me, and I’ll figure out anything you want. I don’t care if the thing’s all guesses and unknown quantities!”
But Sam met the eager glances of none of his friends. His eyes were on Orkney, standing aloof and gravely observant.
There was a tense pause. Then said Sam, very quietly, yet with a ring in his voice:
“Sorry I can’t say yes to everybody. But—but whenever you’re ready, Orkney, we’ll make the plunge.”