"All right."
"Why, that"s good news. Then you--you won"t mind my goin" off to--to do a little prospectin"?"
The sick man frowned: "You stay right where you are. There"s plenty in that jampot."
"Yes, yes! jampot"s fillin" up fine."
"Besides," the low voice wavered on, "didn"t we agree we"d learned the lesson o" the North?"
"The lesson o" the North?" repeated the other with filling eyes.
"Yes, sah. A man alone"s a man lost. We got to stick together, Boy."
The eyelids fell heavily.
"Yes, yes, Colonel." He pressed the big hand. His mouth made the motion, not the sound, "Good-bye, pardner."
CHAPTER XXII
THE GOING HOME
"Despair lies down and grovels, grapples not With evil, casts the burden of its lot.
This Age climbs earth.
--To challenge heaven.
--Not less The lower deeps.
It laughs at Happiness."
--George Meredith
Everybody on Bonanza knew that the Colonel had left off struggling to get out of his bed to go to work, had left off calling for his pardner.
Quite in his right senses again, he could take in Maudie"s explanation that the Boy was gone to Dawson, probably to get something for the Colonel to eat. For the Doctor was a crank and wouldn"t let the sick man have his beans and bacon, forbade him even such a delicacy as fresh pork, though the Buckeyes n.o.bly offered to slaughter one of their newly-acquired pigs, the first that ever rooted in Bonanza refuse, and more a terror to the pa.s.sing Indian than any bear or wolf.
"But the Boy"s a long time," the Colonel would say wistfully.
Before this quieter phase set in, Maudie had sent into Dawson for Potts, O"Flynn and Mac, that they might distract the Colonel"s mind from the pardner she knew could not return. But O"Flynn, having married the girl at the Moosehorn Cafe, had excuse of ancient validity for not coming; Potts was busy breaking the faro bank, and Mac was waiting till an overdue Lower River steamer should arrive.
Nicholas of Pymeut had gone back as pilot of the Weare, but Princess Muckluck was still about, now with Skook.u.m Bill, son of the local chief, now alone, trudging up and down Bonanza like one looking for something lost. The Colonel heard her voice outside the tent and had her in.
"You goin" to marry Skook.u.m Bill, as they say?"
Muckluck only laughed, but the Indian hung about waiting the Princess"s pleasure.
"When your pardner come back?" she would indiscreetly ask the Colonel.
"Why he goes to Dawson?" And every few hours she would return: "Why he stay so long?"
At last Maudie took her outside and told her.
Muckluck gaped, sat down a minute, and rocked her body back and forth with hidden face, got up and called sharply: "Skook.u.m!"
They took the trail for town. Potts said, when he pa.s.sed them, they were going as if the devil were at their heels--wouldn"t even stop to say how the Colonel was. So Potts had come to see for himself--and to bring the Colonel some letters just arrived.
Mac was close behind ... but the Boy? No-no. They wouldn"t let anybody see him; and Potts shook his head.
"Well, you can come in," said Maudie, "if you keep your head shut about the Boy."
The Colonel was lying flat, with that unfaltering ceiling-gaze of the sick. Now his vision dropped to the level of faces at the door.
"h.e.l.lo!" But as they advanced he looked behind them anxiously. Only Mac--no, Kaviak at his heels! and the sick man"s disappointment lightened to a smile. He would have held out a hand, but Maudie stopped him. She took the little fellow"s fingers and laid them on the Colonel"s.
"Now sit down and be quiet," she said nervously.
Potts and Mac obeyed, but Kaviak had fastened his fine little hand on the weak one, and anch.o.r.ed so, stared about taking his bearings.
"How did you get to the Klond.y.k.e, Kaviak?" said the Colonel in a thin, breathy voice.
"Came up with Sister Winifred," Farva answered for him. "She was sent for to help with the epidemic. Dyin" like flies in Dawson--h"m--ahem!"
(Apologetic glance at Maudie.) "Sister Winifred promised to keep Kaviak with her. Woman of her word."
"Well, what you think o" Dawson?" the low voice asked.
Kaviak understood the look at least, and smiled back, grew suddenly grave, intent, looked sharply round, loosed his hold of the Colonel, bent down, and retired behind the bed. That was where Nig was. Their foregathering added nothing to the tranquility of the occasion, and both were driven forth by Maudie.
Potts read the Colonel his letters, and helped him to sign a couple of cheques. The "Louisville instructions" had come through at last.
After that the Colonel slept, and when he woke it was only to wander away into that world where Maudie was lost utterly, and where the Colonel was at home. There was chastening in such hours for Maudie of Minook. "Now he"s found the Other One," she would say to herself--"the One he was looking for."
That same evening, as they sat in the tent in an interval of relief from the Colonel"s muttering monotone, they heard Nig making some sort of unusual manifestation outside; heard the grunting of those pioneer pigs; heard sounds of a whispered "Sh! Kaviak. Shut up, Nig!" Then a low, tuneless crooning:
"Wen yo" see a pig a-goin" along Widder straw in de sider "is mouf, It"ll be er tuhble wintuh, En yo" bettah move down Souf."
"Why, the Boy"s back!" said the Colonel suddenly in a clear, collected voice.
Maudie had jumped up, but the Boy put his head in the tent, smiling, and calling out:
"They told me he was getting on all right, but I just thought maybe he was asleep." He came in and bent over his pardner. "h.e.l.lo, everybody!
Why, you got it so fine and dark in here, I can hardly see how well you"re lookin", Colonel!" And he dropped into the nurse"s place by the bedside.
"Maudie"s lined the tent with black drill," said the Colonel. "You brought home anything to eat?"
"Well, no----" (Maudie telegraphed); "found it all I could do to bring myself back."
"Oh, well, that"s the main thing," said the Colonel, battling with disappointment. p.r.i.c.ked by some quickened memory of the Boy"s last home-coming: "I"ve had pretty queer dreams about you: been givin"
Maudie the meanest kind of a time."
"Don"t go ga.s.sin", Colonel," admonished the nurse.
"It"s pretty tough, I can tell you," he said irritably, "to be as weak as a day-old baby, and to have to let other people----"