by B. M. Bower
CHAPTER TWELVE
THE QUIRT PARRIES THE FIRST BLOW
A car with dimmed lights stood in front of the Quirt cabin when Swandrove around the last low ridge and down to the gate. The rattle of thewagon must have been heard, for the door opened suddenly and Frank stoodrevealed in the yellow light of the kerosene lamp on the table within.Behind Frank, Lorraine saw Jim and Sorry standing in their shirt sleeveslooking out into the dark. Another, shorter figure she glimpsed as Frankand the two men stepped out and came striding hastily toward them.Lorraine jumped out and ran to meet them, hoping and fearing that herhope was foolish. That car might easily be only Bob Warfield on someerrand of no importance. Still, she hoped.
"That you, Raine? Where's Brit? What's all this about Brit being hurt? Adoctor from Shoshone----"
"A _doctor_? Oh, did a doctor come, then? Oh, help Swan carry dad in!I'm--oh, I'm afraid he's awfully injured!"
"Yes-s--but how'n hell did a doctor know about it?" Sorry, the silent,blurted unexpectedly.
"Oh,--never mind--but get dad in. I'll----" She ran past them withoutfinishing her sentence and burst incoherently into the presence of anextremely calm little man with gray whiskers and dust on the shouldersof his coat. These details, I may add, formed the sum of Lorraine'sfirst impression of him.
"Well! Well!" he remonstrated with a professional briskness, when shenearly bowled him over. "We seem to be in something of a hurry! Is thisthe patient I was sent to examine?"
"No!" Lorraine flashed impatiently over her shoulder as she rushed intoher own room and began turning down the covers. "It's dad, ofcourse--and you'd better get your coat off and get ready to go to work,because I expect he's just one mass of broken bones!"
The doctor smiled behind his whiskers and returned to the doorway todirect the carrying in of his patient. His sharp eyes went immediatelyto Brit's face, pallid under the leathery tan, his fingers went toBrit's hairy, corded wrist. The doctor smiled no more that evening.
"No, he is not a mass of broken bones, I am happy to say," he reportedgravely to Lorraine afterwards. "He has a sufficient number, however.The left scapula is fractured, likewise the clavicle, and there is acompound fracture of the femur. There is some injury to the head, theexact extent of which I cannot as yet determine. He should be removed toa hospital, unless you are prepared to have a nurse here for some time,or to assume the burden of a long and tedious illness." He looked at herthoughtfully. "The journey to Shoshone would be a considerable strain onthe patient in his present condition. He has a splendid amount ofconstitutional vitality, or he would scarcely have survived his injuriesso long without medical attendance. Can you tell me just how theaccident occurred?"
"Excuse me, doctor--and Miss," Swan diffidently interrupted. "I couldask you to take a look on my shoulder, if you please. If you are donesetting bones in Mr. Hunter. I have a great pain on my shoulder fromcarrying so long."
"You never mentioned it!" Lorraine reproached him quickly. "Of courseit must be looked after right away. And then, Doctor, I'd like to talkto you, if you don't mind." She watched them retreat to the bunk-housetogether, Swan's big form towering above the doctor's slighter figure.Swan was talking earnestly, the mumble of his voice reaching Lorrainewithout the enunciation of any particular word to give a clue to what hewas saying. But it struck her that his voice did not sound quitenatural; not so Swedish, not so careful.
Frank came tiptoeing out of the room where Brit lay bandaged andunconscious and stood close to Lorraine, looking down at her solemnly.
"How 'n 'ell did he git here--the doctor?" he demanded, making a greateffort to hold his voice down to a whisper, and forgetting now and then."How'd _he_ know Brit rolled off'n the grade? Us here, _we_ never knowedit, and I was tryin' to send him back when you came. He said somebodytelephoned there was a man hurt in a runaway. There ain't a telephonecloser'n the Sawtooth, and that there's a good twenty mile and more fromwhere Brit was hurt. It's damn funny."
"Yes, it is," Lorraine admitted uncomfortably. "I don't know any morethan you do about it."
"Well, how'n 'ell did it happen? Brit, he oughta know enough torough-lock down that hill. An' that team ain't a runaway team. _I_ neverhad no trouble with 'em--they're good at holdin' a load. They'll setdown an' slide but what they'll hold 'er. What become of the horses?"
"Why--they're over there yet. We forgot all about the horses, I think.Caroline was standing up, all right. The other horse may be killed. Idon't know--it was lying down. And Yellowjacket was up that little gullyjust this side of the wreck, when I left him. They did try to hold theload, Frank. Something must have happened to the brake. I saw dadcrawling out from under the wagon just before I got to where the loadwas standing. Or some one did. I think it was dad. But Caroline kickedmy horse down off the road, and I only saw him a minute--but it _must_have been dad. And then, a little way down the hill, something wentwrong."
Frank seemed trying to reconstruct the accident from Lorraine'sdescription. "He'd no business to start down if his rough-lock wasn'tall right," he said. "It ain't like him. Brit's careful about themthings--little men most always are. I don't see how 'n 'ell it workedloose. It's a damn queer layout all around; and this here doctor gittinghere ahead of you folks, that there is the queerest. What's he say aboutBrit? Think he'll pull through?"
The doctor himself, coming up just then, answered the question. Ofcourse the patient would pull through! What were doctors for? As to hisreason for coming, he referred them to Mr. Vjolmar, whom he thoughtcould better explain the matter.
The three of them waited,--five of them, since Jim and Sorry had comeup, anxious to hear the doctor's opinion and anything else pertaining tothe affair. Swan was coming slowly from the bunk-house, buttoning hiscoat. He seemed to feel that they were waiting for him and to know why.His manner was diffident, deprecating even.
"We may as well go in out of the mosquitoes," the doctor suggested. "AndI wish you would tell these people what you told me, young man. Don't beafraid to speak frankly; it is rather amazing but not at allimpossible, as I can testify. In fact," he added dryly, "my presencehere ought to settle any doubt of that. Just tell them, young man, aboutyour mother."
Swan was the last to enter the kitchen, and he stood leaning against theclosed door, turning his old hat round and round, his eyes going swiftlyfrom face to face. They were watching him, and Swan blushed a deep redwhile he told them about his mother in Boise, and how he could talk toher with his thoughts. He explained laboriously how the thoughts fromher came like his mother speaking in his head, and that his thoughtsreached her in the same way. He said that since he was a little boy theycould talk together with their thoughts, but people laughed and somecalled them crazy, so that now he did not like to have somebody knowthat he could do it.
"But Brit Hunter's hurt bad, so a doctor must come quick, or I think hemaybe will die. It takes too long to ride a horse to Echo from thisranch, so I call on my mother, and I tell my mother a doctor must comequick to this ranch. So my mother sends a telephone to this doctor inShoshone, and he comes. That is all. But I would not like it ifeverybody maybe finds it out that I do that, and makes talk about it."
He looked straight at Jim and Sorry, and those two unprepossessing oneslooked at each other and at Swan and at the doctor and at each otheragain, and headed for the door. But Swan was leaning against it, and hiseyes were on them. "I would like it if you say somebody rides to get thedoctor," he hinted quietly.
Sorry looked at Jim. "I rode like hell," he stated heavily. "I leave itto Jim."
"You shore'n hell did!" Jim agreed, and Swan removed his big form fromthe door.
"You boys goin' over t' Spirit Canyon?" Frank wanted to know.
"Yeah," said Sorry, answering for them both, and they went out, givingSwan a sidelong look of utter bafflement as they passed him. Talking bythe thought route from Spirit Canyon to Boise City was evidently a bittoo much for even their phlegmatic souls to contemplate with perfectcalm.
"They'll keep it to theirselves,
whether they believe it or not," Frankassured Swan in his labored whisper. "It don't go down with me. I ain'tsupe'stitious enough fer that."
"The doctor he comes, don't he?" Swan retorted. "I shall go back now andmilk the cows and do chores."
"But if your shoulder is lame, Swan, how can you?" Lorraine asked in herunexpected fashion.
Swan swallowed and looked helplessly at the doctor, who stood smoothinghis chin. "The muscle strain is not serious," he said calmly. "A littlegentle exercise will prevent further trouble, I think." Whereupon heturned abruptly to the door of the other room, glanced in at Brit andbeckoned Lorraine with an upraised finger.
"You have had a hard time of it yourself, young lady," he told her. "Youneedn't worry about Swan. He is not suffering appreciably. I shall mixyou a very unpleasant dose of medicine, and then I want you to go to bedand sleep. I shall stay with your father to-night; not that it isnecessary, but because I prefer daylight for the trip back to town. Sothere is no reason why you should sit up and wear yourself out. You willhave plenty of time to do that while your father's bones mend."
He proceeded to mix the unpleasant dose, which Lorraine swallowed andstraightway forgot, in the muddle of thoughts that whirled confusinglyin her brain. Little things distressed her oddly, while her father'sdesperate state left her numb. She lay down on the cot in the farthercorner of the kitchen where her father had slept just last night--itseemed so long ago!--and almost immediately, as her senses recorded it,bright sunlight was shining into the room.