Part 53 (1/2)

He walked over and put his hand on the Friar's shoulder. ”You might as well all go to sleep, now,” he said, gently. ”There is nothing more to do.”

”Are you positive?” asked the Friar.

”Positive,” said the doctor. ”There is no heart action, and when I held a mirror to her lips no vapor was formed.”

”She is still alive,” said the deep voice of Olaf, and we all gave a little start.

The doctor took a silver quarter and held it to the woman's nose for a minute, and then looked at it. A puzzled look came to his face, and he went back and sat down in the corner again.

”Was it discolored?” asked the Friar.

”No,” sez the doctor slowly; ”but I am sure there is no life remaining. I have seen several cases of suspended animation, but nothin' like this.”

”She lives, and the light is getting stronger,” said Olaf.

Kit took the handkerchief from her eyes which were still full o'

tears. She wiped them away, and looked first at the woman and then at Olaf, and then she gave a sigh. The Friar's hands were opening and shutting. He had fought his fight out on the porch; but the suspense was beginnin' to undermine him again.

I went back to the porch and stayed a while. When I went in again, they were all as I had left them; and after a few minutes I made my rounds, found everything all right, and came back. I went into the room several times, and just as I caught the first whiff o' the dawn breeze, I went in once more, determined to coax the Friar to lie down and try to sleep.

They were still in the same positions. Not a line had changed in the woman's face, the Friar was almost as white as she was but still stood at the foot o' the bed lookin' down at her; while the wrinkles on Olaf's set face seemed carved in stone.

I had just put my hand on the Friar's arm to get his attention when Olaf rose to his feet, pressed his hand to his blinkin' eyes, and said wearily: ”The blue color is givin' way to pink. She will get well.”

”Don't say it unless you're sure!” cried the Friar, his voice like a sob.

For answer Olaf pointed down at the woman's face. A faint color stole into her cheeks, and as we looked her eyes opened. The first thing they rested upon was the Friar's face bent above her, and her lips parted in a wonderin' smile-a smile which lighted her face like the mornin' sun on ol' Mount Savage, and made her beautiful, to me an' to all who've ever seen her.

”Is it you?” she whispered. ”Is it really you?”

A warm, rosy beam of suns.h.i.+ne slipped in through the window and fell across the bed, and the rest of us tiptoed out, leavin' the Friar alone with the gift of life which the Dawn had brought back to him.

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

TY JONES NODS HIS HEAD

It was a week after this before Olaf could see properly again. The doctor was wild to take Olaf back East and hold doin's with him; but Olaf wouldn't listen to it. He hated to have people take him for a freak, and said it wasn't any fault of his that he saw the way he did.

The doctor said 'at what Olaf saw was called the aurora; he said that science had been tryin' to locate it, but hadn't found any way to do it, and that it was some sort o' rays shootin' out from this which had put the inflammation into Olaf's eyes.

Olaf had had one of his teeth filled when he was young, and ever since that he'd been suspicious o' science; so he just clouded up his face when they tried to devil him into bein' an experiment, and they couldn't do anything with him. The Friar might have been able to, but the Friar would have sent his own eyes East by freight before he'd have asked Olaf to do a single thing he didn't want to do. The ignorant allus scoff at the idee of Olaf seein' the soul-flame; but the edicated allus take a serious interest which seems mighty funny-don't it?

From the very moment Janet opened her eyes and smiled up at the Friar that mornin' she continued to improve. The doctor listened to all that was told him about her havin' pains in the top of her head and not bein' right intellectually, and he said she must have had a blow there at some former time which had probably formed a tumor on the brain or knocked off a few splinters of bone into it, and that in removin' the pressure, she had been put into perfect order again.

She had the smoothest voice I had ever heard, and I just doted on hearin' her speak the Friar's name, John Carmichael. I had a legal right to use the name John, myself; but it allus had the feel of a stiff collar to me, so I was glad enough to have it forgotten. But when Janet spoke the words John Carmichael, why, it cleared up the atmosphere and started a little breeze. She didn't recall how she had come to Cross Crick, nor anything much which had happened to her since the night in Berlin. She said she had took singin' lessons in a place called Italy, and had expected to reach grand opery.

She had sung for pay whenever she got a chance, in order to get money enough to go on with her studies, and was gettin' what I'd call mighty lucrative wages at the Winter Garden; but was all the time bothered by a lot o' foreign dudes who had the desire to make love, but not the capacity. She said her manager had introduced an Austrian count for advertizin' purposes, and she had finally consented to eat a meal with him; but had been taken sick and had fallen. This was when she had b.u.mped her head and she never got clear in it again until that morning when she had hovered between goin' out with the night or comin' back with the dawn.

She said she had a hazy, dreamlike remembrance of havin' tried all kinds o' work after this; but couldn't tell the real from the unreal; and she didn't have any recollection of how she had come to the ranch.

We never mentioned Ty Jones to her for she was comin' along like a colt on gra.s.s, and we didn't want to risk any set-back. She said she still had it on her mind that she had lost something precious; but she couldn't make out what it could have been, and the Friar allus told her not to worry, but to just rest herself back to complete strength.

Oscar and Tom Simpson had turned the corner, and it was only a question of time when they'd be all right again-which was true of all the others except Ty and Prometheus. Ty wouldn't speak to us at all, though he didn't seem to suffer to amount to anything. The doctor said he might live for years, or he might slip away at a moment's notice; but either way, he was doomed to be paralyzed for the rest of his life; while the' wasn't any hope for Promotheus at all.