It was with an effort that Houston gave no indication that he had heard. Before, there had been only suspicions, one flimsy clue leading to another, a building-block process, which, in its culmination, had determined Barry to take a trip into the West to see for himself. He had believed that it would be a long process, the finding of a certain telegram and the possibilities which might ensue if this bit of evidence should turn out to be the thing he had suspected. He had not, however, hoped to have from the lips of the man himself a confession that conditions were not right at the lumber mill of which Barry Houston now formed the executive head; to receive the certain statement that somewhere, somehow, something was wrong, something which was working against the best interests of himself and the stern necessities of the future. But now—
Thayer had turned away and evidently sought a chair at the other side of the room. Barry remained perfectly still. Five minutes passed. Ten. There came no sound from the chair; instinctively the man on the bed knew that Thayer was watching him, waiting for the first flicker of an eyelid, the first evidence of returning consciousness. Five minutes more and Barry rewarded the vigil. He drew his breath in a shivering sigh. He turned and groaned,—quite naturally with the pain from his splintered arm. His eyes opened slowly, and he stared about him, as though in non-understanding wonderment, finally to center upon the window ahead and retain his gaze there, oblivious of the sudden tensity of the thin-faced Thayer. Barry Houston was playing for time, playing a game of identities. In the same room was a man he felt sure to be an enemy, a man who had in his care everything Barry Houston possessed in the world, every hope, every dream, every chance for the wiping out of a thing that had formed a black blot in the life of the young man for two grim years, and a man who, Barry Houston now felt certain, had not held true to his trust. Still steadily staring, he pretended not to notice the tall, angular form of Fred Thayer as that person crossed the brightness of the window and turned toward the bed. And when at last he did look up into the narrow, sunken face, it was with eyes which carried in them no light of friendship, nor even the faintest air of recognition. Thayer put forth a gnarled, frost-twisted hand.
"Hello, kid," he announced, his thin lips twisting into a cynical smile that in days gone by had passed as an affectation. Barry looked blankly at him.
"Hello."
"How'd you get hurt?"
"I don't know."
"Old Man Renaud here says you fell over the side of Two Mile Hill. He picked you up about six o'clock this morning. Don't you remember?"
"Remember what?" The blank look still remained. Thayer moved closer to the bed and bending, stared at him.
"Why, the accident. I'm Thayer, you know—Thayer, your manager at the Empire Lake mill."
"Have I a manager?"
The thin man drew back at this and stood for a moment staring down at Houston. Then he laughed and rubbed his gnarled hands.
"I hope you've got a manager. You—you haven't fired me, have you?"
Barry turned his head wearily, as though the conversation were ended.
"I don't know what you are talking about."
"You—don't—say, you're Barry Houston, aren't you?"
"I? Am I?"
"Well, then, who are you?"
The man on the bed smiled.
"I'd like to have you tell me. I don't know myself."
"Don't you know your name?"
"Have I one?"
Thayer, wondering now, drew a hand across his forehead and stood for a moment in disconcerted silence. Again he started to frame a question, only to desist. Then, hesitatingly, he turned and walked to the door.
"Ba'tiste."
"Ah,oui!"
"Come in here, will you? I'm up against a funny proposition. Mr. Houston doesn't seem to be able to remember who he is."
"Ah!" Then came the sound of heavy steps, and Barry glanced toward the door, to see framed there the gigantic form of a grinning, bearded man, his long arms hanging with the looseness of tremendous strength, his gray eyes gleaming with twinkling interest, his whole being and build that of a great, good-humored, eccentric giant. His beard was splotched with gray, as was the hair which hung in short, unbarbered strands about his ears. But the hint of age was nullified by the cocky angle of the blue-knit cap upon his head, the blazing red of his double-breasted pearl-buttoned shirt, the flexible freedom of his muscles as he strode within. Beside him trotted a great gray cross-breed dog, which betokened collie and timber wolf, and which progressed step by step at his master's knee. Close to the bed they came, the great form bending, the twinkling, sharp eyes boring into those of Houston, until the younger man gave up the contest and turned his head,—to look once more upon the form of the girl, waiting wonderingly in the doorway. Then the voice came, rumbling, yet pleasant:
"He no remember, eh?"
"No. I know him all right. It's Barry Houston—I've been expecting him to drop in most any day. Of course, I haven't seen him since he was a kid out here with his father—but that doesn't make any difference. The family resemblance is there—he's got his father's eyes and mouth and nose, and his voice. But I can't get him to remember it. He can't recall anything about his fall, or his name or business. I guess the accident—"
"Eet is the—" Ba'tiste was waving one hand vaguely, then placing a finger to his forehead, in a vain struggle for a word. "Eet is the—what-you-say—"
"Amnesia." The answer had come quietly from the girl. Ba'tiste turned excitedly.
"Ah,oui! Eet is the amnesia. Many time I have seen it—" he waved a hand—"across the way,ne c'est pas? Eet is when the mind he will no work—what you say—he will not stick on the job. See—" he gesticulated now with both hands—"eet is like a wall. I see eet with the shell shock. Eet is all the same. The wall is knock down—eet will not hold together. Blooey—" he waved his hands—"the man he no longer remember!"
This time the stare in Barry Houston's eyes was genuine. To hear a girl of the mountains name a particular form of mental ailment, and then to further listen to that ailment described in its symptoms by a grinning, bearded giant of the woods was a bit past the comprehension of the injured man. He had half expected the girl to say "them" and "that there", though the trimness of her dress, the smoothness of her small, well-shod feet, the air of refinement which spoke even before her lips had uttered a word should have told him differently. As for the giant, Ba'tiste, with his outlandish clothing, his corduroy trousers and high-laced, hob-nailed boots, his fawning, half-breed dog, his blazing shirt and kippy little knit cap, the surprise was all the greater. But that surprise, it seemed, did not extend to the other listener. Thayer had bobbed his head as though in deference to an authority. When he spoke, Barry thought that he discerned a tone of enthusiasm, of hope:
"Do they ever get over it?"
"Sometime, yes. Sometime—no. Eet all depend."
"Then there isn't any time limit on a thing like this."
"No. Sometime a year—sometime a week—sometime never. It all depend. Sometime he get a shock—something happen quick, sudden—blooey—he come back, he say 'where am I', and he be back again, same like he was before!" Ba'tiste gesticulated vigorously. Thayer moved toward the door.
"Then I guess there's nothing more for me to do, except to drop in every few days and see how he's getting along. You'll take good care of him?"
"Ah,oui."
"Good. Want to walk a piece down the road—with me, Medaine?"
"Of course. It's too bad, isn't it—"
Then they faded through the doorway, and Barry could hear no more. But he found himself looking after them, wondering about many things,—about the girl and her interest in Fred Thayer, and whether she too might be a part of the machinery which he felt had been set up against him; about the big, grinning Ba'tiste, who still remained in the room; who now was fumbling about with the bedclothes at the foot of the bed and—
"Ouch! Don't—don't do that!"
Barry suddenly had ceased his thoughts to jerk his feet far up under the covers, laughing and choking and striving to talk at the same time. At the foot of the bed, Ba'tiste, his eyes twinkling more than ever, had calmly rolled back the covering and just as calmly tickled the injured man's feet. More, one long arm had outstretched again, as the giant once more reached for the sole of a foot, to tickle it, then to stand back and boom with laughter as Barry involuntarily sought to jerk the point of attack out of the way. For a fourth time he repeated the performance, followed by a fourth outburst of mirth at the recoil from the injured man. Barry frowned.
"Pardon me," he said rather caustically. "But I don't get the joke."
"Ho, ho!" and Ba'tiste turned to talk to the shaggy dog at his side. "L'enfantfeels it!L'enfantfeels it!"
"Feel it," grunted Houston. "Of course I feel it! I'm ticklish."
"You hear, Golemar?" Ba'tiste, contorted with merriment, pointed vaguely in the direction of the bed, "M'sieu l' Nobody, heem is ticklish!"
"Of course I'm ticklish. Who isn't, on the bottom of his feet?"
The statement only brought a new outburst from the giant. It nettled Houston; further, it caused him pain to be jerking constantly about the bed in an effort to evade the tickling touch of the trapper's big fingers. Once more Ba'tiste leaned forward and wiggled his fingers as if in preparation for a new assault, and once more Barry withdrew his pedal extremities to a place of safety.
"Please don't," he begged. "I—I don't know what kind of a game you're playing—and I'm perfectly willing to join in on it when I feel better—but now it hurts my arm to be bouncing around this way. Maybe this afternoon—if you've got to play these fool games—I'll feel better—"
The thunder of the other man's laugh cut him off. Ba'tiste was now, it seemed, in a perfect orgy of merriment. As though weakened by his laughter, he reeled to the wall and leaned there, his big arms hanging loosely, the tears rolling down his cheeks and disappearing in the gray beard, his face reddened, his whole form shaking with series after series of chuckles.
"You hear heem?" he gasped at the wolf-dog. "M'sieu l' Nobody, he will play with us this afternoon! M'sieu l' Ticklefoot! That is heem, my Golemar, M'sieu l' Ticklefoot! Oh, ho—M'sieu l' Ticklefoot!"
"What in thunder is the big idea?" Barry Houston had lost his reserve now. "I want to be a good fellow—but for the love of Mike let me in on the joke. I can't get it. I don't see anything funny in lying here with a broken arm and having my feet tickled. Of course, I'm grateful to you for picking me up and all that sort of thing, but—"
Choking back the laughter, Ba'tiste returned to the foot of the bed and stood wiping the tears from his eyes.
"Pardon,mon ami," came seriously at last. "Old Ba'teese must have his joke. Listen, Ba'teese tell you something. You see people here today,oui, yes? You see, the petite Medaine? Ah,oui!" He clustered his fingers to his lips and blew a kiss toward the ceiling. "She is the, what-you-say, fine li'l keed. She is the—bon bébé! You no nev' see her before?"
Barry shook his head. Ba'tiste went on.
"You see M'sieu Thayer?Oui? You know heem?"
"No."
"You sure?"
"Never saw him before."
"So?" Batiste grinned and wagged a finger, "Ba'teese he like the truth, yes,oui. Ba'teese he don't get the truth, he tickle M'sieu's feet."
"Now listen! Please—"
"No—no!" The giant waved a hand in dismissal of threat. "Old Ba'teese, he still joke. Ba'teese say he tell you something. Eet is this. You see those people? All right.Bon—good. You don' know one. You know the other. Yes?Oui? Ba'teese not know why you do it. Ba'teese not care. Ba'teese is right—in here." He patted his heart with a big hand. "But you—you not tell the truth. I know. I tickle your feet."
"You're crazy!"
"So, mebbe. Ba'teese have his trouble. Sometime Ba'teese wish he go crazy—like you say."
The face suddenly aged. The twinkling light left the eyes. The big hands knitted, and the man was silent for a long moment. Then, "But Ba'-teese he know—see?" He pointed to his head, then twisting, ran his finger down his spine. "When eet is the—what-you-say, amnesia—the nerve eet no work in the foot. I could tickle, tickle, tickle, and you would not know. But with you—blooey—right away, you feel. So, for some reason, you are, what-you-say?—shamming. But you are Ba'teese' gues'. You sleep in Ba'teese' bed. You eat Ba'teese' food. So long as that, you are Ba'teese' friend. Ba'teese—" he looked with quiet, fatherly eyes toward the young man on the bed—"shall ask no question—and Ba'teese shall tell no tales!"
The simple statement of the gigantic trapper swept the confidence from Houston and left him at a disadvantage. His decision had been a hasty one,—a thing to gain time, a scheme by which he had felt he could, at the proper time, take Thayer off his guard and cause him to come into the open with his plans, whatever they might be. Fate had played a strange game with Barry Houston. It had taken a care-free, happy-go-lucky youth and turned him into a suspicious, distrustful person with a constantly morbid strain which struggled everlastingly for supremacy over his usually cheery grin and his naturally optimistic outlook upon life. For Fate had allowed Houston to live the youth of his life in ease and brightness and lack of worry, only that it might descend upon him with the greatest cloud that man can know. And two years of memories, two years of bitterness, two years of ugly recollections had made its mark. In all his dealings with Thayer, conducted though they might have been at a distance, Barry Houston could not place his finger upon one tangible thing that would reveal his crookedness. But he had suspected; had come to investigate, and to learn, even before he was ready to receive the information, that his suspicions had been, in some wise at least, correct. To follow those suspicions to their stopping place Barry had feigned amnesia. And it had lasted just long enough for this grinning man who stood at the foot of the bed to tickle his feet!
And how should that grotesque giant with his blazing red shirt and queer little cap know of such things as amnesia and the tracing of a deadened nerve? How should he,—then Barry suddenly tensed. Had it been a ruse? Was this man a friend, a companion—even an accomplice of the thin-faced, frost-gnarled Thayer—and had his simple statement been an effort to take Barry off his guard? If so, it had not succeeded, for Barry had made no admissions. But it all affected him curiously; it nettled him and puzzled him. For a long time he was silent, merely staring at the grinning features of Ba'tiste. At last:
"I should think you would wait until you could consult a doctor before you'd say a thing like that."
"So? It has been done."
"And he told you—"
"Nothing. He does not need to even speak to Ba'teese." A great chuckle shook the big frame "Ba'teese know as soon asl' M'sieu Doctaire."
"On good terms, aren't you? When's he coming again?"
"Parbleu!" The big man snapped his fingers. "Peuff! Like that. Ba'teese call heem, and he is here."
Houston blinked. Then, in spite of his aching head, and the pain of the swollen, splint-laced arm he sat up in bed.
"What kind of—"
"Old Ba'teese, he mus' joke," came quickly and seriously from the other man. "Ba'teese—he is heem."
"A doctor?"
Slowly the big man nodded. Barry went on "I—I—didn't know. I thought you were just a trapper. I wondered—"
"So! That is all—jus' a trapper."
Quietly, slowly, the big man turned away from the bed and stood looking out the window, the wolf-dog edging close to him as though in companionship and some strange form of sympathy. There was silence for a long time, then the voice of Ba'tiste came again, but now it was soft and low, addressed, it seemed, not to the man on the bed, but to vacancy.
"So! Ba'teese, he is only a trapper now. Ba'teese, he had swear he never again stand beside a sick bed. But you—" and he turned swiftly, a broken smile playing about his lips—"you,mon ami, you, when I foun' you this morning, with your head twisted under your arm, with the blood on your face, and the dust and dirt upon you—then you—you look like my Pierre! And I pick you up—so!" He fashioned his arms as though he were holding a baby, "and I look at you and I say—'Pierre! Pierre!' But you do not answer—just like he did not answer. Then I start back with you, and the way was rough. I take you under one arm—so. It was steep. I must have one arm free. Then I meet Medaine, and she laugh at me for the way I carry you. And I was glad. Eet made Ba'teese forget."
"What?" Barry said it with the curiosity of a boy. The older man stared hard at the crazy design of the covers.
"My Pierre," came at last. "And my Julienne. Ba'teese, he is all alone now. Are you all alone?" The question came quickly. Barry answered before he thought.
"Yes."
"Then you know—you know how eet feel. You know how Ba'teese think when he look out the window. See?" He pointed, and Barry raised himself slightly that he might follow the direction of the gesture. Faintly, through the glass, he could see something white, rearing itself in the shadows of the heavy pines which fringed the cabin,—a cross. And it stood as the guardian of a mound of earth where pine boughs had been placed in smooth precision, while a small vase, half implanted in the earth, told of flowers in the summer season. Ba'tiste stared at his palms. "Julienne," came at last. "My wife." Then, with a sudden impulse, he swerved about the bed and sat down beside the sick man. "Ba'teese—" he smiled plaintively—"like to talk about Pierre—and Julienne. Even though eet hurt."
Barry could think only in terms of triteness.
"Have they been gone long?"
The big man counted on his fingers.
"One—two—t'ree year. Before that—bon!" He kissed his fingers airily. "Old Ba'teese, he break the way—long time ago. He come down from Montreal, with his Julienne and his Pierre—in his arm, so. He like to feel big and strong—to help other people. So, down here where there were few he came, and built his cabin, with his Pierre and his Julienne. And, so happy! Then, by'm'by, Jacques Robinette come too, with his petite Medaine—"
"That's the girl who was here?"
"Ah,oui. I aml' M'sieu Doctaire. I look after the sick for ten—twenty—thirty mile. Jacques he have more head. He buy land." A great sweep of the arm seemed to indicate all outdoors. "Ev'where—the pine and spruce, it was Jacques! By'm'by, he go on and leave Medaine alone. Then she go 'way to school, but ev' summer she come back and live in the big house. And Ba'teese glad—because he believe some day she love Pierre and Pierre love her and—"
Another silence. At last:
"And then war came. My Pierre, he is but eighteen. But he go. Ba'teese want him to go. Julienne, she say nothing—she cry at night. But she want him to go too. Medaine, she tell funny stories about her age and she go too. It was lonely. Ba'teese was big. Ba'teese was strong. And Julienne say to him, 'You too—you go. You may save a life.' And Ba'teese went."
"To France?"
Ba'tiste bowed his head.
"Long time Ba'teese look for his Pierre. Long time he look for Medaine. But no. Then—" his face suddenly contorted "—one night—in the cathedral at St. Menehould, I find heem. But Pierre not know hispère. He not answer Ba'teese when he call 'Pierre! Pierre!' Here, and here, and here—" the big man pointed to his breast and face and arms—"was the shrapnel. He sigh in my arms—then he is gone. Ba'teese ask that night for duty on the line. He swear never again to bel' M'sieu Doctaire. All his life he help—help—help—but when the time come, he cannot help his own. And by'm'by, Ba'teese come home—and find that."
He pointed out into the shadows beneath the pines.
"She had died?"
"Died!" The man's face had gone suddenly purple. His eyes were glaring, his hands upraised and clutched. "No! Murder! Murder, mon ami! Murder! Lost Wing—he Medaine's Indian—he find her—so! In a heap on the floor—and a bullet through her brain. And the money we save, the ten thousan' dollar—eet is gone! Murder!"
A shudder went over the young man on the bed. His face blanched. His lips lost their color. For a moment, as the big French-Canadian bent over him, he stared with glazed, unseeing eyes, at last to turn dully at the sharp, questioning voice of the trapper:
"Murder—you know murder?"
There was a long moment of silence. Then, as though with an effort which took his every atom of strength, Houston shook himself, as if to throw some hateful, vicious thing from him, and turned, with a parrying question:
"Did you ever find who did it?"
"No. But sometime—Ba'teese not forget. Ba'teese always wait. Ba'teese always look for certain things—that were in the deed-box. There was jewelry—Ba'teese remember. Sometime—" Then he switched again. "Why you look so funny? Huh? Why you get pale—?"
"Please—" Barry Houston put forth a hand. "Please—" Then he straightened. "Ba'tiste, I'm in your hands. You can help me, or you can harm me. You know I was shamming when I acted as though I had lost my identity. Now—now you know there's something else. Will you—"
He ceased suddenly and sank back. From without there had come the sound of steps. A moment later, the door opened, and shadows of a man and a girl showed on the floor. Thayer and Medaine had returned. Soon they were in the room, the girl once more standing in the doorway, regarding Barry with a quizzical, half-wondering gaze, the man coming forward and placing one gnarled hand on the Canadian's shoulder, staring over his head down into the eyes of the injured man on the bed.
"I couldn't go back to the mill without making one more try," he explained. "Has he shown any signs yet?"
Barry watched Ba'teese closely. But the old man's face was a blank.
"Signs? Of what?"
"Coming to—remembering who he is."
"Oh." Ba'tiste shrugged his shoulders. "I have give eet up."
"Then—"
"So far Ba'teese is concern'," and he looked down on the bed with a glance which told Barry far more than words, "he is already name. He is M'sieu Nobody. I can get no more."
Thayer scratched his head. He turned.
"Anyway, I'm going to make one more attempt at it. See what you can do, Medaine."
The girl came forward then, half smiling, and seated herself beside the bed. She took Barry's hand in hers, then with a laugh turned to Thayer.
"What shall I do? Make love to him?"
"Why not?" It was old Ba'tiste edging forward, the twinkle once more in his eyes. "Bon—good! Make love to him."
"Do you suppose it would help?" The girl was truly serious now.
"Why not?"
"I don't think—" Thayer had edged forward, nervously. Ba'tiste pushed him gently.
"Peuff! And when did M'sieu Thayer becomel' M'sieu Doctaire? Ba'teese say ask him if he like you."
Medaine laughed.
"Do you like me?"
Brown eyes met blue eyes. A smile passed between them. It was with an effort that Houston remembered that he was only playing a part.
"I certainly do!"
"Ask him, 'Do you like me better than anybody you ever—'"
"What sense is there to all this?"
"Blooey! And why should you ask? Why should you stand with a frown on your face? Peuff! It is ugly enough already!" To Barry, it was quite evident that there was some purpose behind the actions of Old Ba'tiste, and certainly more than mere pleasantry in his words. "You ask Medaine to help Ba'teese, and thenfacher vous! Enough. Ask him, Medaine."
"But—" the girl was laughing now, her eyes beaming, a slight flush apparent in her cheeks—"maybe he doesn't want me to—"
"Oh, but I do!" There was something in the tone of Barry Houston which made the color deepen. "I—I like it."
"That's enough!" Thayer, black-featured, his gnarled hands clenched into ugly knots, came abruptly forward. "I thought this was a serious thing; I didn't know you were going to turn it into a burlesque!"
"Perhaps M'sieu Thayer has studied the practice of medicine?"
"No. But—"
"Nor, pardon, the practice of politeness. Ba'teese will not need your help."
"Whether you need it or not, I'll come back when you're through with this infernal horseplay. I—"
"Ba'teese choose his guests."
"You mean—"
"Ba'teese mean what he say."
"Very well, then. Come on, Medaine."
The girl, apparently without a thought of the air of proprietorship in the man's tone, rose, only to face Ba'tiste. The Canadian glowered at her.
"And are you chattel?" he stormed. "Do you stand in the cup of his hand that he shall tell you when to rise and when to sit, when to walk and where to go?"
She turned.
"You were abrupt, Fred. I'm glad Ba'tiste reminded me. Personally, I don't see why I should have been drawn into this at all, or why I should be made the butt of a quarrel over some one I never saw before."
"I'm sorry—terribly sorry." Barry was speaking earnestly and holding forth his hand. "I shouldn't have answered you that way—I'm—"
"We'll forget it all." A flashing smile had crossed the girl's lips. "Fred never knows how to take Ba'tiste. They're always quarreling this way. The only trouble is that Fred—" and she turned to face him piquantly—"always takes in the whole world when he gets mad. And that includes me. I think," and the little nose took a more upward turn than ever, "that Ba'tiste is entirely right, Fred. You talked to me as though I were a sack of potatoes. I won't go with you, and I won't see you until you can apologize."
"There's nothing to apologize for!"
Thayer jammed on his hat and stamped angrily out the door. Medaine watched him with laughing eyes.
"He'll write me a letter to-night," came quietly. Then, "Lost Wing!"
"Ugh!" It was a grunt from outside.
"I just wanted to be sure you were there. Call me when Mr. Thayer has passed the ridge."
"Ugh!"
Medaine turned again to Ba'tiste, a childish appearance of confidence in her eyes, her hand lingering on the chair by the bed.
"Were you really fooling, Ba'tiste—or shall we continue?"
"Perhaps—" the twinkle still shone in the old man's eyes—"but not now. Perhaps—sometime. So mebbe sometime you—"
"Wah—hah—hai-i-e-e-e!" The Sioux had called from without. Medaine turned.
"When you need me, Ba'tiste," she answered, with a smile that took in also the eager face on the bed, "I'll be glad to help you. Good-by."
That too included Barry, and he answered it with alacrity. Then for a moment after she had gone, he lay scowling at Ba'tiste, who once more, in a weakened state of merriment, had reeled to the wall, followed as usual by his dog, and leaned there, hugging his sides. Barry growled:
"You're a fine doctor! Just when you had me cured, you quit! I'd forgotten I even had a broken arm."
"So?" Ba'tiste straightened. "You like her, eh? You like the petite Medaine?"
"How can I help it?"
"Bon! Good! I like you to like Medaine. You no like Thayer?"
"Less every minute."
"Bon! I no like heem. He try to take Pierre's place with Medaine. And Pierre, he was strong and tall and straight. Pierre, he could smile—bon! Like you can smile. You look like my Pierre!" came frankly.
"Thanks, Ba'tiste." Barry said it in wholehearted manner. "You don't know how grateful I am for a little true friendliness."
"Grateful? Peuff! You? Bah, you shall go back, and they will ask who helped you when you were hurt, and you—you will not even remember what is the name."
"Hardly that." Barry pulled thoughtfully at the covers. "In the first place, I'm not going back, and in the second, I haven't enough true friends to forget so easily. I—I—" Then his jaw dropped and he lay staring ahead, out to the shadows beneath the pines and the stalwart cross which kept watch there. "I—"
"You act funny again. You act like you act when I talk about my Julienne. Why you do eet?"
Barry Houston did not answer at once. Old scenes were flooding through his brain, old agonies that reflected themselves upon his features, old sorrows, old horrors. His eyes grew cold and lifeless, his hands white and drawn, his features haggard. The chuckle left the lips of Ba'tiste Renaud. He moved swiftly, almost sinuously to the bed, and gripped the younger man by his uninjured arm. His eyes came close to Barry Houston, his voice was sharp, tense, commanding:
"You! Why you act like that when I talk about murder? Why you get pale, huh? Why you get pale?"
The gaze of Ba'tiste Renaud was strained as he asked the question, his manner tense, excited. Through sheer determination, Barry forced a smile and pulled himself back to at least a semblance of composure.
"Maybe you know the reason already—through Thayer. But if you don't—Ba'tiste, how much of it do you mean when you say you are a man's friend?"
"Ba'teese may joke," came quietly, "but Ba'teese no lie. You look like my Pierre—you help where it has been lonesome. You are my frien'."
"Then I know you are not going to ask me for something that hurts in telling. And at least, I can give you my word of honor that it isn't because of my conscience!"
Ba'tiste was silent after that, walking slowly about the room, shaggy head bent, hands clasped behind his back, studious, as though striving to fathom what had been on the man's mind. As for Barry, he stared disconsolately at vacancy, living again a thing which he had striven to forget. It had been forced upon him, this partial admission of a cloud in the past; the geniality, the utter honesty, the friendliness of the old French-Canadian, the evident dislike for a man whom he, Barry, also thoroughly distrusted, had lowered the younger man's guard. The tragic story of Pierre and Julienne had furthered the merest chance acquaintance into what seemed the beginning, at least, of closest friendship. Houston had known Ba'tiste for only a matter of a few hours,—yet it seemed months since he first had looked upon the funny little blue cap and screaming red shirt of the Canadian; and it was evident that Renaud had felt the same reaction. Barry Houston, to this great, lonely man of the hills, looked like a son who was gone, a son who had grown tall and straight and good to look upon a son upon whom the old man had looked as a companion, and a chum for whom he had searched in every battle-scarred area of a war-stricken nation, only to find him,—too late. And with this viewpoint, there was no shamming about the old man's expressions of friendship. More, he took Barry's admission of a cloud in the past as a father would take it from a son; he paced the floor minute after minute, head bowed, gray eyes half closed, only to turn at last with an expression which told Barry Houston that a friend was his for weal or woe, for fair weather or foul, good or evil.
"Eet is enough!" came abruptly. "There is something you do not want to tell. I like you—I not ask. You look like my Pierre—who could do no wrong. So!Bon—good! Ba'teese is your frien'. You have trouble? Ba'teese help."
"I've had plenty of that, in the last two years," came quietly. "I think I've got plenty ahead of me. What do you know about Thayer?"
"He no good."
"Why?"
"Ba'teese don' know. On'y he have narrow eyes too close together. He have a quirk to his mouth Ba'teese no like. He have habit nev' talkin' about himself—he ask you question an' tell you nothing. He have hatchet-face; Ba'teese no like a man with a hatchet-face. Beside, he make love to Medaine!"
Barry laughed.
"Evidently that's a sore spot with you, Ba'tiste."
"No. Ba'teese no care. But if my Pierre had live, he would have make love to her. She would have marry him. And to have M'sieu Thayer take his place? No! Mebbe—" he said it hopefully, "mebbe you like Medaine, huh?"
"I do! She's pretty, Ba'tiste."
"Mebbe you make love?"
But the man on the bed shook his head.
"I can't make love to anybody, Ba'tiste. Not until I've—I've found something I'm looking for. I'm afraid that's a long way off. I haven't the privileges of most young fellows. I'm a little—what would you call it—hampered by circumstance. I've—besides, if I ever do marry, it won't be for love. There's a girl back East who says she cares for me, and who simply has taken it for granted that I think the same way about her. She stood by me—in some trouble. Out of every one, she didn't believe what they said about me. That means a lot. Some way, she isn't my kind; she just doesn't awaken affection on my part, and I spend most of my time calling myself a cad over it. But she stood by me—and—I guess that's all that's necessary, after all. When I've fulfilled my contract with myself—if I ever do—I'll do the square thing and ask her to marry me."
Ba'tiste scowled.
"You dam' fool," he said. "Buy 'em present. Thank 'em,merci beaucoup. But don' marry 'em unless 'you love 'em. Ba'teese, he know. Ba'teese, he been in too many home where there is no love."
"True. But you don't know the story behind it all, Ba'tiste. And I can't tell you except this: I got in some trouble. I'd rather not tell you what it was. It broke my father's heart—and his confidence in me. He—he died shortly afterward."
"And you—was it your fault?"
"If you never believe anything else about me, Ba'tiste, believe this: that it wasn't. And in a way, it was proven to him, before he went. But he had been embittered then. He left a will—with stipulations. I was to have the land he owned out here at Empire Lake; and the flume site leading down the right side of Hawk Creek to the mill. Some one else owns the other side of the lake and the land on the opposite bank of the stream."
"Oui. Medaine Robinette."
"Honestly? Is it hers?"
"When she is twenty-one. But go on."
"Father wouldn't leave me the mill. He seemed to have a notion that I'd sell it all off—and he tied everything up in a way to keep me from doing anything like that. The mill is rented to me. The land is mine, and I can do everything but actually dispose of it. But on top of that comes another twist: if I haven't developed the business within five years into double what it was at the peak of its best development, back goes everything into a trust fund, out of which I am to have a hundred dollars a month, nothing more. That's what I'm out here for, Ba'tiste, to find out why, in spite of the fact that I've worked day and night now for a year and a half, in spite of the fact that I've gone out and struggled and fought for contracts, and even beaten down the barriers of dislike and distrust and suspicion to get business—why I can't get it! Something or some one is blocking me, and I'm going to find out what and who it is! I think I know one man—Thayer. But there may be more. That's why I'm playing this game of lost identity. I thought I could get out here and nose around without him knowing it. When he found out at once who I was, and seemed to have had a previous tip that I was coming out here, I had to think fast and take the first scheme that popped into my head. Maybe if I can play the game long enough, it will take him off his guard and cause him to work more in the open. They may give me a chance to know where I stand. And I've got to know that, Ba'tiste. Because—" and his voice was vibrant with determination, "I don't care what happens to me personally. I don't care whether five minutes after I have made it, I lose every cent of what I have worked for. But I do care about this; I'm going to make good to my father's memory. I'm going to be able to stand before a mirror and look myself straight in the eye, knowing that I bucked up against trouble, that it nearly whipped me, that it took the unfairest advantage that Fate can take of a man in allowing my father to die before I could fully right myself in his eyes, but that if there is a Justice, if there is anything fair and decent in this universe, some way he'll know, some way he'll rest in peace, with the understanding that his son took up the gauntlet that death laid down for him, that he made the fight, and that he won!"
"Bon—good!" Old Ba'tiste leaned over the foot of the bed. "My Pierre—he would talk like that.Bon? Now—what is it you look for?"
"In the first place, I want to know how so many accidents can happen in a single plant, just at the wrong time. I want to know why it is that I can go out and fight for a contract, and then lose it because a saw has broken, or an off-bearer, lugging slabs away from the big wheel, can allow one to strike at just the wrong moment and let the saw pick it up and drive it through the boiler, laying up the whole plant for three weeks. I want to know why it is that only about one out of three contracts I land are ever filled. Thayer's got something to do with it, I know. Why? That's another question. But there must be others. I want to know who they are and weed them out. I've only got three and a half years left, and things are going backward instead of forward."
"How you intend to fin' this out?"
"I don't know. I've got one lead—as soon as I'm able to get into town. That may give me a good deal of information; I came out here, at least, in the hope that it would. After that, I'm hazy. How big a telegraph office is there at Tabernacle?"
"How big?" Ba'tiste laughed. "Howpetite! Eet is about the size of the—what-you-say—the peanut."
"Is there ever a time when the operator isn't there?"
"At noon. He go out to dinner, and he leave open the door. If eet is something you want, walk in."
"Thanks." A strange eagerness was in Houston's eyes. "I think I'll be able to get up to-morrow. Maybe I can walk over there; it's only a mile or two, isn't it?"
But when to-morrow, came, it found a white, bandaged figure sitting weakly in front of Ba'tiste's cabin, nothing more. Strength of purpose and strength of being had proved two different things, and now he was quite content to rest there in the May sunshine, to watch the chattering magpies as they went about the work of spring house-building, to study the colors of the hills, the mergings of the tintings and deeper hues as the scale ran from brown to green to blue, and finally to the stark red granite and snow whites of Mount Taluchen.
Ba'tiste and his constant companion, Golemar, were making the round of the traps and had been gone for hours. Barry was alone—alone with the beauties of spring in the hills, with the soft call of the meadow lark in the bit of greenery which fringed the still purling stream in the little valley, the song of the breeze through the pines, the sunshine, the warmth—and his problems.
Of these, there were plenty. In the first place, how had Thayer known that he was on the way from the East? He had spoken to only two persons,—Jenkins, his bookkeeper, and one other. To these two persons he merely had given the information that he was going West on a bit of a vacation. He had deliberately chosen to come in his car, so that there might be every indication, should there be such a thing as a spy in his rather diminutive office, that he merely intended a jaunt through a few States, certainly not a journey half across the country. But just the same, the news had leaked; Thayer had been informed, and his arrival had been no surprise.
That there had been need for his coming, Barry felt sure. At the least, there was mismanagement at the mill; contract after contract lost just when it should have been gained told him this, if nothing more. But—and he drew a sheet of yellow paper from his pocket and stared hard at it—there was something else, something which had aroused his curiosity to an extent of suspicion, something which might mean an open book of information to him if only he could reach Tabernacle at the right moment and gain access to the telegraph files without the interference of the agent.
Then suddenly he ceased his study of the message and returned it to his pocket. Two persons were approaching the cabin from the opposite hill,—a girl whom he was glad to see, and a man who walked, or rather rolled, in the background: Medaine Robinette and a sort of rear guard who, twenty or thirty feet behind her, followed her every step, trotted when she ran down the steep side of an embankment, then slowed as she came to a walk again. A bow-legged creature he was, with ill-fitting clothing and a broad "two-gallon" hat which evidently had been bequeathed to him by some cow-puncher, long hair which straggled over his shoulders, and a beaded vest which shone out beneath the scraggly outer coat like a candle on a dark night. Instinctively Barry knew him to be the grunting individual who had waited outside the door the night before,—Lost Wing, Medaine's Sioux servant: evidently a self-constituted bodyguard who traveled more as a shadow than as a human being. Certainly the girl in the foreground gave no indication that she was aware of his presence; nor did she seem to care.
Closer she came, and Barry watched her, taking a strange sort of delight in the skipping grace with which she negotiated the stepping stones of the swollen little stream which intervened between her and the cabin of Ba'tiste Renaud, then clambered over the straggling pile of massed logs and dead timber which strewed the small stretch of flat before the rise began, leading to where he rested. More like some graceful, agile boy was she than a girl. Her clothing was of that type which has all too soon taken the place of the buckskin in the West,—a riding habit, with stout little shoes and leather puttees; her hair was drawn tight upon her head and encased in the shielding confines of a cap, worn low over her forehead, the visor pulled aside by a jutting twig and now slanting out at a rakish angle; her arms full of something pink and soft and pretty. Barry wondered what it could be,—then brightened with sudden hope.
"Wonder if she's bringing them to me?"
The answer came a moment later as she faced him, panting slightly from the exertion of the climb, the natural flush of exercise heightened by her evident embarrassment.
"Oh, you're up!" came in an almost disappointed manner. Then with a glance toward the great cluster of wild roses in her arms, "I don't know what to do with these things now."
"Why?" Barry's embarrassment was as great as hers. "If—if it'll do any good, I'll climb back into bed again."
"No—don't. Only I thought you were really, terribly ill and—"
"I am—I was—I will be. That is—gosh, it's a shame for you to go out and pick all those and then have me sitting up here as strong as an ox. I—"
"Oh, don't worry about that." She smiled at him with that sweetness which only a woman can know when she has the advantage. "I didn't pick them. Lost Wing"—she pointed to the skulking, outlandishly dressed Indian in the background—"attended to that. I was going to send them over by him. But I didn't have anything to do, so I just thought I'd bring them myself."
"Thanks for that, anyway. Can't I keep them just the same—to put on the table or something?"
"Oh, if you care to." Barry felt that she was truly disappointed that he wasn't at the point of death, or at least somewhere near it. "Where's Ba'tiste."
"Out looking after his traps, picking them up I think, for the summer. He'll be back soon. Is there—"
"No. I usually come over every day to see him, you know." Then the blue eyes lost their diffidence to become serious. "Do you remember yet who you are?"
"Less right at this minute than at any other time!" spoke Barry truthfully. "I'm out of my head entirely!" He reached for the flowers.
"Please don't joke that way. It's really serious. When I was across—army nursing—I saw a lot of just such cases as yours. Shell shock, you know. One has to be awfully careful with it."
"I know. But I'm getting the best of care. I—ouch!" His interest had exceeded his caution. The unbandaged hand had waved the flowers for emphasis and absently gripped the stems. The wild roses fluttered to the ground. "Gosh!" came dolefully, "I'm all full of thorns. Guess I'll have to pick 'em out with my teeth."
"Oh!" Then she picked up the roses and laid them gingerly aside. "You can't use your other hand, can you?"
"No. Arm's broken."
"Then—" she looked back toward Lost Wing, hunched on a stump, and Barry's heart sank. She debated a moment, at last to shake her head. "No—he'd want to dig them out with a knife. If you don't mind." She moved toward Houston and Barry thrust forth his hand.
"If you don't mind," he countered and she sat beside him. A moment later:
"I must look like a fortune teller."
"See anything in my palm besides thorns?"
"Yes. A little dirt. Ba'tiste evidently isn't a very good nurse."
"I did the best I could with one hand. But I was pretty grimy. I—I didn't know," and Barry grinned cheerfully, "I was going to be this lucky."
She pretended not to hear the sally. And in some way Barry was glad. He much rather would have her silent than making some flippant remark, much rather would he prefer to lean comfortably back on the old bench and watch the quiet, almost childish determination of her features as she sought for a grip on the tiny protuberances of the thorns, the soft brownness of the few strands of hair which strayed from beneath the boyish cap, the healthy glow of her complexion, the smallness of the clear-skinned hands, the daintiness of the trim little figure. Much rather would he be silent with the picture than striving for answers to questions that in their very naïveness were an accusation. Quite suddenly Barry felt cheap and mean and dishonest. He felt that he would like to talk about himself,—about home and his reasons for being out here; his hopes for the mill which now was a shambling, unprofitable thing; about the future and—a great many things. It was with an effort, when she queried him again concerning his memory, that he still remained Mr. Nobody. Then he shifted the conversation from himself to her.
"Do you live out here?"
"Yes. Didn't Ba'tiste tell you? My house is just over the hill—you can just see one edge of the roof through that bent aspen."
Barry stared.
"I'd noticed that. Thought it was a house, but couldn't be sure. I thought I understood Ba'tiste to say you only came out here in the summer."
"I did that when I was going to school. Now I stay here all the year 'round."
"Isn't it lonely?"
"Out here? With a hundred kinds of birds to keep things going? With the trout leaping in the streams in the summer time, and a good gun in the hollow of your arm in the winter? Besides, there's old Lost Wing and his squaw, you know. I get a lot of enjoyment out of them when we're snowed in—in the winter. He's told me fully fifty versions of how the Battle of Wounded Knee was fought, and as for Custer's last battle—it's wonderful!"
"He knows all about it?"
"I'd hardly say that." Medaine reached under her cap for a hairpin, looked quickly at Barry as though to ask him whether he could stand pain, then pressed a recalcitrant thorn into a position where it could be extracted. "I think the best description of Lost Wing is that he's an admirable fiction writer. Ba'tiste says he has more lies than a dog has fleas."
"Then it isn't history?"
"Of course not. Just imagination. But it's well done, with plenty of gestures. He stands in front of the fire and acts it all out while his squaw sits on the floor and grunts and nods and wails at the right time, and it's really entertaining. They're about a million years old, both of them. My father got them when he first came down here from Montreal. He wanted Lost Wing as a sort of bodyguard. It was a good deal wilder in this region then than it is now, and father owned a good deal of land."
"So Ba'tiste tells me. He says that practically all of the forests around here are yours."
"They will be, next year," came simply, "when I'm—"
She stopped and laughed.
"Ba'tiste told me. Twenty-one."
"He never could keep anything to himself."
"What's wrong about that? I'm twenty-seven myself."
"Honestly? You don't look it."
"Don't I? I ought to. I've got a beard and everything. See?" He pulled his hand away for a moment to rub the two-days' growth on his face. "I tried to shave this morning. Couldn't make it. Ba'tiste said he'd play barber for me this afternoon. Next time you come over I'll be all slicked up."
Again she laughed, and once more pursued the remaining thorns.
"How do you know there'll be a next time?"
"If there isn't, I'll drive nails in myself, so you'll have to pull 'em out." Then seriously. "You do come over here often, don't you?"
"Of course—" then, the last thorn disposed of, she rose—"to see Ba'tiste. I look on him as a sort of a guardian. He knew my father. But let's talk about yourself. You seem remarkably clear in your mind to be afflicted with amnesia. Are you sure you don't remember anything—?"
"No—not now. But," and Barry hedged painfully, "I think I will. It acts to me like a momentary thing. Every once in a while I get a flash as though it were all coming back; it was just the fall, I'm sure of that. My head's all right."
"You mean your brain?"
"Yes. I don't act crazy, or anything like that, do I?"
"Well," and she smiled quizzically, "of course, I don't know you, so I have nothing to go by. But I must admit that you say terribly foolish things."
Leaving him to think over that, she turned, laughed a good-by, and with the rolling, bow-legged old Lost Wing in her wake, retraced the path to the top of the hill, there to hesitate a moment, wave her hand quickly, and then, as though hurrying away from her action, disappeared. Barry Houston sat for a long time, visualizing her there on the brow of the hill, her head with its long-visored cap tilted, her hand upraised, her trimness and her beauty silhouetted against the opalesque sky, dreaming,—and with a bit of heartache in it. For this sort of thing had been his hope in younger, fairer days. This sort of a being had been his make-believe companion of a Castle in Spain. This sort of a joking, whimsical girl had been the one who had come to him in the smoke wreaths and tantalized him and promised him—
But now, his life was gray. His heart was not his own. His life was at best only a grim, drab thing of ugly memories and angered determinations. If a home should ever come to him, it must be in company with some one to whom he owed the gratitude of friendship in time of need; not love not affection, but the paying of a debt of deepest honor. Which Barry would do, and faithfully and honestly and truthfully. As for the other—
He leaned against the bark slabs of the cabin. He closed his eyes. He grinned cheerily.
"Well," came at last, "there's no harm in thinking about it!"