Part 16 (1/2)

”What d'yuh think about him?” he whispered, setting the coffee down on a box so that he could take Lovin Child. ”Pretty sick kid, don't yuh think?”

”It's the same cold I got,” Cash breathed huskily. ”Swallows like it's his throat, mostly. What you doing for him?”

”Bacon grease and turpentine,” Bud answered him despondently. ”I'll have to commence on something else, though--turpentine's played out I used it most all up on you.”

”Coal oil's good. And fry up a mess of onions and make a poultice.” He put up a shaking hand before his mouth and coughed behind it, stifling the sound all he could.

Lovin Child threw up his hands and whimpered, and Bud went over to him anxiously. ”His little hands are awful hot,” he muttered. ”He's been that way all night.”

Cash did not answer. There did not seem anything to say that would do any good. He drank his coffee and eyed the two, lifting his eyebrows now and then at some new thought.

”Looks like you, Bud,” he croaked suddenly. ”Eyes, expression, mouth--you could pa.s.s him off as your own kid, if you wanted to.”

”I might, at that,” Bud whispered absently. ”I've been seeing you in him, though, all along. He lifts his eyebrows same way you do.”

”Ain't like me,” Cash denied weakly, studying Lovin Child. ”Give him here again, and you go fry them onions. I would--if I had the strength to get around.”

”Well, you ain't got the strength. You go back to bed, and I'll lay him in with yuh. I guess he'll lay quiet. He likes to be cuddled up close.”

In this way was the feud forgotten. Save for the strange habits imposed by sickness and the care of a baby, they dropped back into their old routine, their old relations.h.i.+p. They walked over the dead line heedlessly, forgetting why it came to be there. Cabin fever no longer tormented them with its magnifying of little things. They had no time or thought for trifles; a bigger matter than their own petty prejudices concerned them. They were fighting side by side, with the Old Man of the Scythe--the Old Man who spares not.

Lovin Child was pulling farther and farther away from them. They knew it, they felt it in his hot little hands, they read it in his fever-bright eyes. But never once did they admit it, even to themselves.

They dared not weaken their efforts with any admissions of a possible defeat. They just watched, and fought the fever as best they could, and waited, and kept hope alive with fresh efforts.

Cash was tottery weak from his own illness, and he could not speak above a whisper. Yet he directed, and helped soothe the baby with baths and slow strokings of his hot forehead, and watched him while Bud did the work, and worried because he could not do more.

They did not know when Lovin Child took a turn for the better, except that they realized the fever was broken. But his listlessness, the unnatural drooping of his whole body, scared them worse than before.

Night and day one or the other watched over him, trying to antic.i.p.ate every need, every vagrant whim. When he began to grow exacting, they were still worried, though they were too f.a.gged to abase themselves before him as much as they would have liked.

Then Bud was seized with an attack of the grippe before Lovin Child had pa.s.sed the stage of wanting to be held every waking minute. Which burdened Cash with extra duties long before he was fit.

Christmas came, and they did not know it until the day was half gone, when Cash happened to remember. He went out then and groped in the snow and found a little spruce, hacked it off close to the drift and brought it in, all loaded with frozen snow, to dry before the fire. The kid, he declared, should have a Christmas tree, anyway. He tied a candle to the top, and a rabbit skin to the bottom, and prunes to the tip of the branches, and tried to rouse a little enthusiasm in Lovin Child. But Lovin Child was not interested in the makes.h.i.+ft. He was crying because Bud had told him to keep out of the ashes, and he would not look.

So Cash untied the candle and the fur and the prunes, threw them across the room, and peevishly stuck the tree in the fireplace.

”Remember what you said about the Fourth of July down in Arizona, Bud?”

he asked glumly. ”Well, this is the same kind of Christmas.” Bud merely grunted.

CHAPTER NINETEEN. BUD FACES FACTS

New Year came and pa.s.sed and won nothing in the way of celebration from the three in Nelson's cabin. Bud's bones ached, his head ached, the flesh on his body ached. He could take no comfort anywhere, under any circ.u.mstances. He craved clean white beds and soft-footed attendance and soothing silence and cool drinks--and he could have none of those things. His bedclothes were heavy upon his aching limbs; he had to wait upon his own wants; the fretful crying of Lovin Child or the racking cough of Cash was always in his ears, and as for cool drinks, there was ice water in plenty, to be sure, but nothing else. Fair weather came, and storms, and cold: more storms and cold than fair weather. Neither man ever mentioned taking Lovin Child to Alpine. At first, because it was out of the question; after that, because they did not want to mention it. They frequently declared that Lovin Child was a pest, and there were times when Bud spoke darkly of spankings--which did not materialize. But though they did not mention it, they knew that Lovin Child was something more; something endearing, something humanizing, something they needed to keep them immune from cabin fever.

Some time in February it was that Cash fas.h.i.+oned a crude pair of snowshoes and went to town, returning the next day. He came home loaded with little luxuries for Lovin Child, and with the simpler medicines for other emergencies which they might have to meet, but he did not bring any word of seeking parents. The nearest he came to mentioning the subject was after supper, when the baby was asleep and Bud trying to cut a small pair of overalls from a large piece of blue duck that Cash had brought. The shears were dull, and Lovin Child's little rompers were so patched and shapeless that they were not much of a guide, so Bud was swearing softly while he worked.

”I didn't hear a word said about that kid being lost,” Cash volunteered, after he had smoked and watched Bud awhile. ”Couldn't have been any one around Alpine, or I'd have heard something about it.”

Bud frowned, though it may have been over his tailoring problem.

”Can't tell--the old squaw mighta been telling the truth,” he said reluctantly. ”I s'pose they do, once in awhile. She said his folks were dead.” And he added defiantly, with a quick glance at Cash, ”Far as I'm concerned, I'm willing to let it ride that way. The kid's doing all right.”

”Yeah. I got some stuff for that rash on his chest. I wouldn't wonder if we been feeding him too heavy on bacon rinds, Bud. They say too much of that kinda thing is bad for kids. Still, he seems to feel all right.”