Part 31 (1/2)
O'Flynn has seen my son, he has spoken with Father Jared, he has come with Kate from England, and he left her nursing at Bolt Taylor's bedside. She is sending Surly Brown from Soda Creek with a cable, to build a new scow, and start the ferry again. Ransome Pollock's to manage the Trevor ranch. Iron's to reopen the Sky-line while she makes his peace with the owners--O'Flynn wants to run the packing. She is finding a doctor to take McGee's practise. Tearful George is to buy an imported stallion, and drift him with a bunch of East Oregon mares to stock my empty pastures. The dead settlement is to live again as though there had been no Polly to rob, ruin, and murder among our pioneers. And then my wife will send young Englishmen to school with me for training.
Stroke by stroke this Mr. O'Flynn comes las.h.i.+ng home the news into my hide, as though I were being flogged. He says he hated me always, but never despised me before as he does now. My wife and I should change clothes, only I'd be too useless for a woman. Iron says the same, and in a most unchristian way I thrashed the pair, knocking their heads together, for putting me too much in the wrong while I wanted my breakfast. They think there's something in my argument.
The news is better for being discussed, and best of all I reckon this man Eure who is to side-track Polly, building a town at the foot of the Hundred Mile Falls. The pines on the high land, too small a trash for lumber, are good enough for pulp to feed a mill, while paper is the plate from which we eat our knowledge. I see the black bush turning into books, the lands in oats or pasture till they're warmed for wheat, and when we come to the rocks there's marble to build colleges for our sons, gold to endow them. The land too poor for any other crop, is best for raising men.
It's only because I'm happy I write nonsense, feeling this night as though I were being cured of all my blindness. I have a sense that though I sit in darkness, my wife is with me, and if my eyes were opened, I should see her. Is it our weakness which gives such strength to love?
CHAPTER IV
AT HUNDRED MILE HOUSE
_Kate's Narrative_
Mr. Eure inspected the woods and water-power, then departed for the coast, secretly to buy timber limits, avowedly to find a nurse and a doctor.
Mr. Tom Faulkner, his engineer, surveyed, then let contracts for temporary snow road, log buildings at the falls, and a telegraph line which would secure our business from being known at Polly's post-office.
Mr. Dale reopened the Sky-line mines, pending my arrangement with the owners.
Mr. Surly Brown placed a cable and built a scow in readiness to renew his ferry business.
Mr. Tearful George placed loads of forage a day's march apart across the forest, then drifted live stock into Jesse's ranch.
Father Jared sought out young gentlemen to be trained at Jesse's ”School of Colonial Instruction.”
Mr. William O'Flynn became bartender, despatch rider, stable man, general adviser, and commander-in-chief at the Hundred.
A bewildered Chinaman, with a yellow smile, cooked, scrubbed, chattered pidgin-English, and burned incense to Joss in the kitchen.
And I, Kate, was busy nursing and keeping house, with never a moment to spare for the specters which thronged our forest. After the snow road diverted traffic, my one visitor was Pete Mathson, who on Sat.u.r.days climbed the long hill for his rations. When my patient was well enough, he would talk with ”Bolt” Taylor about old times in the gold mines, or on the high technic of pack-train harness, above the comprehension of a woman.
Until the nurse came I was with my patient always, and slept in the same close room. On her arrival--how I envied that pretty uniform--Nurse Panton proceeded to set us all to rights. She was a colorless creature, supported by routine as by a corset, and Billy informed me that she needed to be shocked thoroughly. He told her that the patient, being a sailor, wanted the nursing done s.h.i.+pshape and Bristol fas.h.i.+on. Nurse and I were to have each four hours on and four off, with two dog or half watches, which would daily reverse the order, so giving us the middle watch by turns. Nurse was indignant at the very idea, and finding me on Billy's side, protested to the captain. ”Capital!” said he, delighted at any chance of shaking up the long monotony of illness. ”You'll strike the bells as we do at sea,” he said, ”two for each hour.”
Of course the first of the nursing ten commandments is, ”Pretend to agree with the patient;” but then the naval officer, if he missed his bells, would awake with horrible deep-sea oaths, and ”Stop her grog,” so that she got no tea except by obedience.
Whether relieved at midnight or at four A. M. I would put on my furs for a little prowl outdoors. To leave the house when it was forty degrees below zero, felt like the plunge into an icy bath, but gave the same refreshment afterward. And it was good to watch the ghostly dances of the northern lights fill the whole sky with music visible.
Once setting out on such an excursion I traversed the dining-hall, entered the dark barroom, and opened the inner door which gave upon the porch. But this time I could not push the storm door open. Something resisted, something outside thrusting at the panels, something alive. I fell back against the bar, imagining bears, burglars, bogies, anything, while I listened, afraid to breathe.
It was then I heard a voice, a girlish voice outside in the Arctic cold, chanting in singsong recitation as though at school:
”Bruce, Bruce; Huron, Desoronto; Chatham Cayuga; Guelph--not Guelph--oh, what comes after Cayuga?” Then feeble hands battered against the door, ”Teacher! Teacher!”
But when I opened the door, the girl stepped back afraid.
”You're not the teacher,” she said; ”oh, tell me before she comes.
Sixty-six counties and the towns have all got mixed.”