Part 20 (1/2)

”Yes,” said Nulty. ”Now you run for the doctor--and you run like h.e.l.l.

If he ain't at home--find him. Tell him to come to Nulty--_quick_.

Understand?”

The Polack nodded his head excitedly.

”Doctor--Nultee,” he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed brightly.

”Yes,” said Nulty. ”Go on, now--run!” And he gave the Polack an initial start with a vigorous push that nearly toppled the man forward on his nose.

Nulty stooped down, picked up P. Walton in his arms as though the latter were a baby, and started toward his own home a block away.

”My G.o.d,” he muttered, ”a railroad man down there in a state like this--he'd have a long chance, he would! Poor devil, guess he won't last out many more of these. Blast it all, now if the wife was home she'd know what to do--blamed if I know!”

For all that, however, Nulty did pretty well. He put P. Walton to bed, and started feeding him cracked ice even before the doctor came--after that Nulty went on feeding cracked ice.

Along toward midnight, Gleason, the yard-master, burst hurriedly into the house.

”Say, Nulty, you there!” he bawled. ”That blasted train robber's got away, and--oh!” He had stepped from the hall over the threshold of the bedroom door, only to halt abruptly as his eyes fell upon the bed.

”Anything I can do--Nulty?” he asked in a booming whisper, that he tried to make soft.

Nulty, sitting in a chair by the bed, shook his head--and Gleason tiptoed in squeaky boots out of the house.

P. Walton, who had been lying with closed eyes, opened them, and looked at Nulty.

”What did he say?” he inquired.

”Says the fellow we got to-day has got away,” said Nulty shortly.

”Shut up--the doctor says you're not to talk.”

P. Walton's bright eyes made a circuit of the room, came back, and rested again on Nulty.

”Would you know him again if you saw him?” he demanded.

”Would I know him!” exclaimed Nulty. ”It's not likely I wouldn't, is it? I was dead-heading him down from Gopher b.u.t.te, wasn't I?”

”I think,” said P. Walton slowly, ”if it were me I'd be scared stiff that he got away--afraid he'd be trying to revenge that other fellow, you know. You want to look out for him.”

”I'd ask nothing better than to meet him again,” said Nulty grimly.

”Now, shut up--you're not to talk.”

P. Walton was pretty sick. Nulty sat up all that night with him, laid off from his run the next day, and sat up with P. Walton again the next night. Then, having sent for Mrs. Nulty, who was visiting relatives down the line, Mrs. Nulty took a hand in the nursing. Mrs. Nulty was a little, sweet-faced woman, with gray Irish eyes and no style about her--Nulty's pay-check didn't reach that far--but she knew how to nurse; and if her hands were red and the knuckles a little swollen from the washtub, she could use them with a touch that was full enough of tender sympathy to discount anything a manicure might have reason to find fault with on professional grounds. She didn't rate Nulty for turning her home into a hospital, and crowding her train-sheet of work, already pretty full, past all endurance--Mrs. Nulty, G.o.d bless her, wasn't that kind of a woman! She looked at her husband with a sort of happy pride in her eyes; looked at P. Walton, and said, ”Poor man,” as her eyes filled--and went to work. But for all that, it was touch and go with P. Walton--P. Walton was a pretty sick man.

It's queer the way trouble of that sort acts--down and out one day with every signal in every block set dead against you; and the next day a clear track, with rights through b.u.t.toned in your reefer, a wide-flung throttle, and the sweep of the wind through the cab gla.s.s whipping your face till you could yell with the mad joy of living. It's queer!

Five days saw P. Walton back at the office, as good, apparently, as ever he was--but Mrs. Nulty didn't stop nursing. Nulty came down sick in place of P. Walton and took to bed--”to give her a chance to keep her hand in,” Nulty said. Nulty came down, not from overdoing it on P.

Walton's account--a few nights sitting up wasn't enough to lay a man like Nulty low--Nulty came down with a touch of just plain mountain fever.

It wasn't serious, or anything like that; but it put a stop order, temporarily at least, on the arrangements Nulty had cussed P. Walton into agreeing to. P. Walton was to come and board with the Nultys at the same figure he was paying Ivan Peloff until he got a raise and could pay more. And so, while Nulty was running hot and cold with mountain fever, P. Walton, with Mrs. Nulty in mind, kept his reservations on down in the Polack quarters, until such time as Nulty should get better--and went back to work at the office.