Part 2 (1/2)
He winced with a sudden pain, a sharp, yet aching throb of agony which involuntarily closed his eyes and clenched tight his teeth until it should pa.s.s. When he looked again, she was gone, and the opening of a door in the next room told him where. Almost wondering, he turned his eyes then toward the blankets and sought to move an arm,--only again to desist in pain. He tried the other, and it responded. The covers were lowered, and Barry's eyes stared down upon a bandaged, splinted left arm. Broken.
He grunted with surprise, then somewhat doggedly began an inspection of the rest of his human machine. Gingerly he wiggled one toe beneath the blankets. It seemed to be in working order. He tried the others, with the same result. Then followed his legs--and the glorious knowledge that they still were intact. His one free hand reached for his head and felt it. It was there, plus a few bandages, which however, from their size, gave Barry little concern. The inventory completed, he turned his head at the sound of a voice--hers--calling from the doorway to some one without.
”He's getting along fine, Ba'tiste.” Barry liked the tone and the enthusiastic manner of speaking. ”His fever's gone down. I should think--”
”Ah, _oui_!” had come the answer in booming ba.s.s. ”And has he, what you say, come to?”
”Not yet. But I think he ought to, soon.”
”_Oui_! Heem no ver' bad. He be all right tomorrow.”
”That's good. It frightened me, for him to be unconscious so long.
It's been five or six hours now, hasn't it?”
”Lemme see. I fin' heem six o'clock. Now--eet is the noon. Six hour.”
”That's long enough. Besides, I think he's sleeping now. Come inside and see--”
”Wait, _m' enfant_. M'sieu Thayer he come in the minute. He say he think he know heem.”
The eyes of Barry Houston suddenly lost their curiosity. Thayer? That could mean only one Thayer! Barry had taken particular pains to keep from him the information that he was anywhere except the East. For it had been Fred Thayer who had caused Barry to travel across country in his yellow speedster, Thayer who had formed the reason for the displacement of that name plate at the beginning of Hazard Pa.s.s, Thayer who--
”Know him? Is he a friend?”
”_Oui_. So Thayer say. He say he think eet is the M'sieu Houston, who own the mill.”
”Probably coming out to look over things, then?”
”_Oui_. Thayer, he say the young man write heem about coming. That is how he know when I tell heem about picking heem up from the machine.
He say he know M'sieu Houston is coming by the automobile.”
In the other room, Barry Houston blinked rapidly and frowned. He had written Thayer nothing of the sort. He had-- Suddenly he stared toward the ceiling in swift-centered thought. Some one else must have sent the information, some one who wanted Thayer to know that Barry was on the way, so that there would be no surprise in his coming, some one who realized that his mission was that of investigation!
The names of two persons flashed across his mind, one to be dismissed immediately, the other--
”I'll fire Jenkins the minute I get back!” came vindictively. ”I'll--.”
He choked his words. A query had come from the next room.
”Was that heem talking?”
”No, I don't think so. He groans every once in a while. Wait--I'll look.”
The injured man closed his eyes quickly, as he heard the girl approach the door, not to open them until she had departed. Barry was thinking and thinking hard. A moment later--
”How's the patient?” It was a new voice, one which Barry Houston remembered from years agone, when he, a wide-eyed boy in his father's care, first had viewed the intricacies of a mountain sawmill, had wandered about the bunk houses, and ridden the great, skidding bobsleds with the lumberjacks in the spruce forests, on a never-forgotten trip of inspection. It was Thayer, the same Thayer that he once had looked upon with all the enthusiasm and pride of boyhood, but whom he now viewed with suspicion and distrust. Thayer had brought him out here, without realizing it. Yet Thayer had known that he was on the way.
And Thayer must be combatted--but how? The voice went on, ”Gained consciousness yet?”
”No.” The girl had answered. ”That is--”