Part 9 (1/2)
”Is this the lad with the injured arm?” asked the gentleman meeting the pair, and glancing toward Jim's bandaged arm, with the coat sleeve hanging loose above it.
”Yes, sir, but it's nothing. It doesn't need any attention,” said Jim, ungraciously.
”Behave yourself, Jim. Yes, Doctor--I suppose you're that?--he is so badly hurt that he's cross. But it's wonderful to find a doctor away up here,” said Dorothy. Her odd little air of authority over the great, loutish lad, and her gay smile to himself, instantly won the stranger's liking, and he answered warmly:
”Wonderful, maybe, but no more so than all of Dan Ford's doings. Step this way, my son, and Miss, I fancy you'd best not follow just yet.
Nurse Melton will a.s.sist me, if I need a.s.sistance.”
”A nurse, too? How odd!” said Dorothy turning to join her mates.
She did not see Jim Barlow again that night. When the examination was made the doctor found the injured arm in bad shape, swollen and inflamed to a degree that made great care a necessity unless much worse were to follow.
So, for the first time in his healthy life, Jim found himself an invalid; sent to bed and ministered to by a frail, sweet-faced woman in a white uniform, whose presence on that far away ranch was a puzzle to him. Until, seeing his evident curiosity, she satisfied it by the explanation:
”Oh! I'm merely another of Mr. Ford's beneficiaries. My brother is an engineer on one of his railroads, and he heard that I was threatened with consumption. So he had me sent to Denver for a time, till San Leon was ready. Then I came here. I'm on hand to attend any sick folks who may need me, though you're the first patient yet. I can tell you that you're fortunate to number Daniel Ford among your friends. He's the grandest man in the world.”
Jim lay quiet for a time, till his supper was brought in. But he could not taste that. The dressing of his wounded arm had been painful in extreme, though he had borne the pain without a groan, and for that been greatly admired by both the surgeon and the nurse. He was now feverish and discontented. The ”happy summer” of which Dorothy had boasted was beginning anything but happily for him. He was angry against his own weakness and disappointed that he could not at once begin his work of studying the rocks of this region. To do so had been his chief reason for accepting Mr. Ford's genial invitation, for his shyness shrank from meeting strangers and accepting favors from them. Dr. Sterling had talked him ”out of his nonsense” for the time being, but he now wished himself back in his familiar room at Deerhurst lodge, with Hans and Griselda Roemer. They were humble folk and so was he. He had no business in this rich man's ”shack” that was, in reality, a palace; where pleasure was the rule and work the exception. Well--things might happen!
He'd take care they should! He was among the mountains--for that part he was glad; only regretful of the debt to another which had brought him there.
The hum of voices in and about the big house ceased. Even the barking dogs were silent at last, and the music from the men's quarters, stopped. There was where he, Jim belonged, by right. Out in some of the many buildings at the rear; so many, in fact, that they were like a village. He guessed he'd go there. Yes. In the morning, maybe the Boss would give him a job, and he could work to pay his keep. His thoughts grew wilder and more disordered, his head ached.
The nurse was sitting silent in an adjoining room. Actual watching was unnecessary and she understood her patient's mood, that her presence in his chamber worried him. It was his time--now or never. He crept from his bed and stepped out of the low window upon the wide porch.
Even in his delirious confusion it struck him that he had never seen such wonderful moonlight, nor such a big, inviting world. The vagary of thought altered. He would not seek the workmen's quarters, after all.
The mountains were better. They called him. They did not seem far away.
He would not feel so hot and then so s.h.i.+very if he could lie down on their cool tops, with only the sky above him. Aye, they called him; and blindly answering to their silent summons the sick boy went. The things he prophesied had surely begun to ”happen.”
CHAPTER VI
A MARTINET OF THE ROCKIES
San Leon ranch was a large one. The dwelling house and many outbuildings were upon a rich plateau topping a spur from the great mountain beyond.
On one side, the land sloped to the valley of the Mismit, utilized for the sheep farming; and across the river, or run, rose gra.s.sy fields, climbing one above another till they ended in rocky, verdureless soil.
Here were the cattle ranges, and here the herds of horses lived their free life. The extent of the property amazed the newcomers, even Lady Gray herself.
She was exploring the premises escorted by Leslie and her young guests, and piloted by the talkative Lem Hunt. For once he had attentive listeners. There was no fellow ranchmen to ridicule his oft-told tales, but eager ears to which they were new; and eyes as eager to behold the scenes of these same marvellous stories.
All began and ended with ”The Boss, he.” Evidently, for old Lem, there existed but one man worth knowing and that was the ”Boss, he.”
”I s'pose, Ma'am, you know how the Boss, he come to buy S' Leon. No? You don't? By the Great Horned Spoon! Ain't that great? Just like him. The Boss, he never brags of his doin's, that's why I have to do it for him.
Well, Ma'am, I can't help sayin' 'twas a deed o' charity. Just a clean, simon-pure piece of charity. Yes, Ma'am, that's what it was, and you can bite that off an' chew it.”
Mrs. Ford smiled. She was always delighted to hear of her husband's generous deeds but rarely heard of them from himself. Also, she had supposed that the purchase of San Leon had been a recent one and was amazed now to learn it had been owned by Mr. Ford for several years. Not as it then was, for no improvements had been made to the home-piece till after he had found her that last winter in San Diego. Then, at once, preparations had been made for this home-coming, with the result of all the beauty that now greeted her eyes.
”Tell us, Lemuel. I'm anxious to hear.”
Lem switched some hay from a wagon seat, that stood upon the ground, and motioned the lady to be seated. The youngsters grouped about her, Lem cut off a fresh ”chaw,” rubbed his hands and began. He stood with legs far apart, arms folded, an old sombrero pushed back on his head, a riding crop in hand, and an air of a king. Was he not a free-born American citizen, as good as could be found in all the country? Lemuel adored his ”Boss” but he had not learned the manners which that ”Boss”
would have approved in the presence of the Gray Lady; who, by the way, was never more truly the ”Lady” than in her intercourse then, and always, with the toilers at San Leon.