XX
A PUZZLED AMBASSADOR
A faint aureole of light crept up back of the pass.
"Dawn at last!" Jack breathed, in relief. "Firio! Firio! Up with you!"
"Oh-yuh!" yawned Firio. "_Si, si_!" he said, rising numbly to his feetand rubbing his eyes with his fists, while he tried to comprehend anastonishing reversal of custom. Usually he awakened his camp-mate; butthis morning his camp-mate had awakened him. A half shadow in thesemi-darkness, Jack was already throwing the saddle over P.D.'s back.
"We will get away at once," he said.
Firio knew that something strange had come over Senor Jack after he hadmet Senorita Ewold on the pass, and now he was convinced that this thinghad been working in Senor Jack's mind all night.
"Coffee before we start?" he inquired ingratiatingly.
"Coffee at the ranch," Jack answered.
In their expeditious preparations for departure he hummed no snatches ofsong as a paean of stretching muscles and the expansion of his being withthe full tide of the conscious life of day; and this, too, was contraryto custom.
Before it was fairly light they were on the road, with Jack urging P.D.forward at a trot. The silence was soft with the shimmer of dawn; allglistening and still the roofs and trees of Little Rivers took form. Themoist sweetness of its gardens perfumed the fresh morning air in greetingto the easy traveller, while the makers of gardens were yet asleep.
It was the same hour that Mary had hurried forth after her wakeful nightto stop the duel in the _arroyo_. As Jack approached the Ewold home hehad a glimpse of something white, a woman's gown he thought, thatdisappeared behind the vines. He concluded that Mary must have risenearly to watch the sunrise, and drew rein opposite the porch; but throughthe lace-work of the vines he saw that it was empty. Yet he was positivethat he had seen her and that she must have seen him coming. She wasmissing the very glorious moment which she had risen to see. A rim ofmolten gold was showing in the defile and all the summits of the rangewere topped with flowing fire.
"Mary!" he called.
There was no answer. Had he been mistaken? Had mental suggestion playedhim a trick? Had his eyes personified a wish when they saw a figure onthe steps?
"Mary!" he called again, and his voice was loud enough for her to haveheard if she were awake and near. Still there was no answer.
The pass had now become a flaming vortex which bathed him in itsfar-spreading radiance. But he had lost interest in sunrises. A lastbackward, hungry glance over his shoulder as he started gave him aglimpse through the open door of the living-room, and he saw Mary leaningagainst the table looking down at her hands, which were half clasped inher lap, as if she were waiting for him to get out of the way.
Thus he understood that he had ended their comradeship when he had brokenthrough the barrier on the previous afternoon, and the only thing thatcould bring it back was the birth of a feeling in her greater thancomradeship. His shoulders fell together, the reins loosened, while P.D.,masterless if not riderless, proceeded homeward.
"Hello, Jack!"
It was the greeting of Bob Worther, the inspector of ditches, who was theonly man abroad at that hour. Jack looked up with an effort to be genialand found Bob closely studying his features in a stare.
"What's the matter, Bob?" he asked. "Has my complexion turned green overnight or my nose slipped around to my ear?"
"I was trying to make out if you do look like him!" Bob declared.
"Like whom? What the deuce is the mystery?"
"What--why, of course you're the most interested party and the onlyLittle Riversite that don't know about it, seh!"
After all, there was some compensation for early rising. Bob expandedwith the privilege of being the first to break the news.
"If you'd come yesterday you'd have seen him. He went by the noon train,"he said, and proceeded with the story of Prather.
Jack had never heard of the man before and was obviously uninterested. Hedid not seem to care if a dozen doubles came to town.
"Oh, yes, there's another thing concerning you," Bob continued. "I was sointerested in telling you about Prather that I near forgot it. Aswell-looking fellow--says he's a doctor and he's got New York writtenall over him--came in yesterday particularly to see you."
Though it was a saying in Little Rivers that nobody ever found Jack at aloss, he started perceptibly now. His fingers worked nervously on thereins and he bit his lips in irritation.
"He was asking a lot of questions about you," Bob added.
By this time Jack had summoned back his smile. He did not seem to mind ifa dozen doctors came to town at the same time as a dozen doubles.
"Did you tell him that I had a cough--kuh-er?" he asked, casually.
"Why, no! I said you could thrash your weight in wildcats and he says,'Well, he'll have to, yet!' and then shut up as if he'd overspokehimself--and I judge that he ain't the kind that does that often. Butsay, Jack," Bob demanded, in the alarm of local partisanship whichapprehends that it may unwittingly have served an outside interest, "didyou want us to dope it out that you were an invalid? We ain't beengetting you in wrong, I hope?"
"Not a bit!" answered Jack with a reassuring slap on Bob's shoulder. "Washis name Bennington?"
"Yes, that's it."
"Well," said Jack thoughtfully and with a return of his annoyance, "hewill find me at home when he calls." And P.D. knew that the reins werestill held in listless hands as he turned down the side street toward thenew ranch.
Firio was feeling like an astrologer who had lost faith in his crystalball. An interrogation had taken the place of his confident "_Si, si_"of desert understanding of the mind of his patron. Jack had broken campwith the precipitancy of one who was eager to be quit of the trail andback at the ranch; yet he gave his young trees only a passing glancebefore entering the house. He had not wanted coffee on the road, yetcoffee served with the crisp odor of bacon accompanying its aroma, afterhis bath and return to ranch clothes, found no appetite. He was as a manwhose mind cannot hold fast to anything that he is doing. Firio,restless, worried, his eyes flicking covert glances, was frequently inand out of the living-room on one excuse or another.
"What work to-day?" he asked, as he cleared away the breakfast dishes."What has Senor Jack planned for us to do?"
"The work to-day? The work to-day?" Jack repeated absently. "First themail." He nodded toward a pile on the table.
"And I shall make ready to stay a long time?" Firio insinuated softly.
"No!" Jack answered to space.
The pyramid of mail might have been a week's batch for the Doge himself.At the bottom were a number of books and above them magazines which Jackhad subscribed for when he found that they were not on the Doge's list.There was only one letter as a first-class postage symbol of the exile'sintimacy with the outside world, and out of this tumbled a check and ablank receipt to be filled in. He tore off the wrappers of the magazinesas a means of some sort of physical occupation and rolled them intoballs, which he cast at the waste-basket; but neither the contents of themagazines nor those of the newspapers seemed to interest him. Hisaspect was that of one waiting in a lobby to keep an appointment.
When he heard steps on the porch he sang out cheerily, "Come in!" but,contrary to the habit of Little Rivers hospitality, he did not hasten tomeet his caller, and any keenness of anticipation which he may have feltwas well masked.
There entered a man of middle age, with close-cropped gray beard, clad insoft flannels, the trousers bottoms turned up in New York fashion fornegligee business suits for that spring. To the simple interior of awestern ranch house he brought the atmosphere of complex civilization asa thing ineradicably bred into his being. It was evident, too, that hehad been used to having his arrival in any room a moment of importancewhich summoned the rapt attention of everybody, whether nurses, fellowphysicians, or the members of the patient's family. But this time thatwas lacking. The young man leaning against the table was not visiblyimpressed.
"Hello
, doctor!" said Jack, as unconcernedly as he would have passed thetime of day with Jim Galway in the street.
"Hello, Jack!" said the doctor.
Jack went just half-way across the room to shake hands. Then he droppedback to his easy position, with the table as a rest, after he had set achair for the visitor.
"How do you like Little Rivers?" Jack asked.
"I have been here only thirty-six hours," answered the doctor, avoiding adirect answer. He was pulling off his silk summer gloves, making theoperation a trifle elaborate, one which seemed to require muchattention. "I came pretty near mistaking another man for you, but hismole patch saved me. I didn't think you could have grown one out here.Wonderfully like you! Have you met him?"
He glanced up as he asked this question, which seemed the first to occurto him as a warming-up topic of conversation before he came to thebusiness in hand.
"No. I have just heard of him," Jack answered.
The doctor smiled at his gloves, which he now folded and put in hispocket. Don't the lecturers to young medical students say, "Divert yourpatient's mind to some topic other than himself as you get your firstimpression"? Now Dr. Bennington drew forward in his chair, rested thetips of the long fingers of a soft, capable hand on the edge of thetable, and looked up to Jack in professional candor, sweeping him withthe knowing eye of the modern confessor of the secrets of all manner ofmankind. With the other hand he drew a stethoscope from his sidecoat-pocket.
"Well, Jack, you can guess what brought me all the way from NewYork--just five minutes' work!" and he gave the symbol of examination aflourish in emphasis.
"I don't think I have forgotten the etiquette of the patient onsuch occasions," Jack returned. "It is an easy function in thisArizona climate."
He drew his shirt up from a compact loin and lean middle, revealing thearch of his deep chest, the flesh of which was healthy pink under neckand face plated with Indian tan. The doctor's eyes lighted with the blissof a critic used to searching for flaws at sight of a masterpiece. Whilehe conducted the initial plottings with the rubber cup which carriedsounds to one of the most expensive senses of hearing in America, Jackwas gazing out of the window, as if his mind were far away across thecactus-spotted levels.
"Breathe deep!" commanded the doctor.
Jack's nostrils quivered with the indrawing of a great gust of air andhis diaphragm swelled until his ribs were like taut bowstrings.
"And you were the pasty-faced weakling that left my office five yearsago--and you, you husky giant, have brought me two thousand miles to seeif you were really convalescent!"
"I hope the trip will do you good!" said Jack, sweetly.
"But it is great news that I take back, great news!" said the doctor, ashe put the stethoscope in his pocket.
"Yes?" returned Jack, slipping his head through his shirt. "You don'tfind even a speck?"
"Not a speck! No sign of the lesion! There is no reason why you shouldnot have gone home long ago."
"No?" Jack was fastening his string tie and doing this with something ofthe urban nicety with which the doctor had folded his gloves. That tiewas one of the few inheritances from complex civilization which still hadJack's favor.
"What have you found to do all these years?"
Jack was surprised at the question.
"I have just wandered about and read and thought," he explained.
"Without developing any sense of responsibility?" demanded the doctor inexasperation.
"I have tried to be good to my horses, and of late I have taken toranching. There is a lot of responsibility in that and care, too. Takethe scale, for instance!"
"A confounded little ranch out in this God-forsaken place, that a Swedeimmigrant might run!"
"No, the Swedes aren't particularly good at irrigation, though betterthan the Dutch. You see, the Hollanders are used to having so muchwater that--"
Jack was leaning idly against the table again. The fashionablepractitioner, accustomed to having his words accepted at their cost pricein gold, broke in hotly:
"It is past all understanding! You, the heir to twenty millions!"
"Is it twenty now?" Jack asked softly and sadly.
"Nearer thirty, probably! And shirking your duty! Shirking and forwhat--for what?"
Jack faced around. The doctor, meeting a calm eye that was quizzicallychallenging, paused abruptly, feeling that in some way he had been caughtat a professional disadvantage in his outburst of emotion.
"Don't you like Little Rivers?" asked Jack.
"I should be bored to death!" the doctor admitted, honestly.
"Well, you see this air never healed a lesion for you! You neveruttered a prayer to it for strength with every breath! And, doctor,"Jack hesitated, while his lips were half open, showing his even teethslightly apart in the manner of a break in a story to the childrenwhere he expected them to be very attentive to what was coming, "youcan take a piece of tissue and analyze it, yes, a piece of brain tissueand find all the blood-vessels, but not what a man was thinking, canyou? Until you can take a precipitate of his thoughts--the verythoughts he is unconscious of himself--and put them under a microscope,why, there must be a lot of guesswork about the source of allunconventional human actions."
Jack laughed over his invasion of psychology; and when he laughed in acertain way the impulse to join him was strong, as Mary first found onthe pass. So the doctor laughed, partly in relief, perhaps, that thisuncertain element which he was finding in Jack had not yet provedexplosive.
"That would make a capital excuse for a student flunking inexaminations!" he said.
"It might be a worthy one--not that I say it ought to pass him."
"Now, Jack," the doctor began afresh, the reassuring force of hispersonality again in play.
He took a step and raised his hands as if he would put them on Jack'sshoulders. One could imagine him driving hypochondria out of many apatient's mind by thus making his own vigorous optimism flow down fromhis fingertips, while he looked into the patient's eye. But his handsremained in the air, though Jack had been only smiling at him. This wasnot the way to handle this patient, something told his trained, sensitiveinstinct in time, and he let his hands fall in semblance of a gesture ofprotest, gave a shrug and came directly to the point very genuinely.
"Well, Jack--your father!"
"Yes." And Jack's face was still and blank, while shadows played overit in a war among themselves. "He did not even tell me you werecoming," he added.
"Perhaps he feared that it would give you time to develop a cough or youwould start overland to Chihuahua so I should miss you. Jack, he needsyou! All that fortune waits for you!"
"Now that I am strong, yes! He did not come out to see me even duringthe first year when I had not the health to go to him, nor did he thinkto come with you."
"He--he is a very busy man!" explained the doctor, in ready championship.And yet he looked away from Jack, and when he looked back it was with anappeal to conscience rather than to filial affection. "Is it right toremain, however much you like this desert life? Have you any excuse?"
"Yes, an overwhelming one!" exclaimed Jack in a voice that washigh-pitched and determined, while his eyes burned and no trace of humorremained on lips that were as firm as the outline of his chin. "Yes, onethat thrills me from head to foot with the steady ardor of the soldierwho makes a siege!"
"I--I--you are beyond me! Then you will stay? You are not coming home?"
"Yes," Jack answered, in another mood, but one equally rigid. "I amcoming at once. That was all settled last night under the stars. I havefound the courage!"
"The courage to go to twenty millions!" gasped the doctor. "But--good!You will go! That is enough! Why shouldn't we take the same train back?"he went on enthusiastically. "I shall be coming through here in less thana week. You see, I am so near California that I simply had to steal a fewdays with my sister, who can't come East on account of her health. I havebeen so tied down to practice that I have not seen her for fifteen years.That will give
you time to arrange your affairs. How about it?"
"It would be delightful, but--" Jack was hesitating. "No, I will refuse.You see, I rode horseback when I entered this valley for the first timeand I should like to ride out in the way I came. Just sentiment!"
"Jack!" exclaimed the doctor.
He was casting about how to express his suspicion when something electricchecked him--a current that began in Jack's measured glance. Jack was notmentioning that his word was being questioned, but something still andeffective that came from far away out on the untrod desert was in theroom. It fell on the nerves of the ambassador from the court of complexcivilization like a sudden hush on a city's traffic. Jack broke thesilence by asking, in a tone of lively hospitality:
"You will join me at luncheon?"
"I should like to," answered the doctor, "but I can catch a train on theother trunk line that will give me a few more hours with my sister. Andwhat shall I wire your father? Have you any suggestion?"
"Why, that he will be able to judge for himself in a few days how nearcured I am."
"You will wire him the date of your arrival?"
"Yes."
"Jack," said the doctor at the door, "that remark of yours about theanalysis of brain tissue and of thought put a truth very happily. Comeand see me and let me know how you get on. Good-by!"
He took his departure thoughtfully, rather than with a sense oftriumph over the success of a two-thousand-mile mission in the name oftwenty millions.
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