Part 4 (1/2)
Barry shook his head. Ba'tiste went on.
”You see M'sieu Thayer? _Oui_? You know heem?”
”No.”
”You sure?”
”Never saw him before.”
”So?” Batiste grinned and wagged a finger, ”Ba'teese he like the truth, yes, _oui_. Ba'teese he don't get the truth, he tickle M'sieu's feet.”
”Now listen! Please--”
”No--no!” The giant waved a hand in dismissal of threat. ”Old Ba'teese, he still joke. Ba'teese say he tell you something. Eet is this. You see those people? All right. _Bon_--good. You don' know one. You know the other. Yes? _Oui_? Ba'teese not know why you do it. Ba'teese not care. Ba'teese is right--in here.” He patted his heart with a big hand. ”But you--you not tell the truth. I know. I tickle your feet.”
”You're crazy!”
”So, mebbe. Ba'teese have his trouble. Sometime Ba'teese wish he go crazy--like you say.”
The face suddenly aged. The twinkling light left the eyes. The big hands knitted, and the man was silent for a long moment. Then, ”But Ba'-teese he know--see?” He pointed to his head, then twisting, ran his finger down his spine. ”When eet is the--what-you-say, amnesia--the nerve eet no work in the foot. I could tickle, tickle, tickle, and you would not know. But with you--blooey--right away, you feel. So, for some reason, you are, what-you-say?--shamming. But you are Ba'teese' gues'. You sleep in Ba'teese' bed. You eat Ba'teese'
food. So long as that, you are Ba'teese' friend. Ba'teese--” he looked with quiet, fatherly eyes toward the young man on the bed--”shall ask no question--and Ba'teese shall tell no tales!”
CHAPTER IV
The simple statement of the gigantic trapper swept the confidence from Houston and left him at a disadvantage. His decision had been a hasty one,--a thing to gain time, a scheme by which he had felt he could, at the proper time, take Thayer off his guard and cause him to come into the open with his plans, whatever they might be. Fate had played a strange game with Barry Houston. It had taken a care-free, happy-go-lucky youth and turned him into a suspicious, distrustful person with a constantly morbid strain which struggled everlastingly for supremacy over his usually cheery grin and his naturally optimistic outlook upon life. For Fate had allowed Houston to live the youth of his life in ease and brightness and lack of worry, only that it might descend upon him with the greatest cloud that man can know. And two years of memories, two years of bitterness, two years of ugly recollections had made its mark. In all his dealings with Thayer, conducted though they might have been at a distance, Barry Houston could not place his finger upon one tangible thing that would reveal his crookedness. But he had suspected; had come to investigate, and to learn, even before he was ready to receive the information, that his suspicions had been, in some wise at least, correct. To follow those suspicions to their stopping place Barry had feigned amnesia. And it had lasted just long enough for this grinning man who stood at the foot of the bed to tickle his feet!
And how should that grotesque giant with his blazing red s.h.i.+rt and queer little cap know of such things as amnesia and the tracing of a deadened nerve? How should he,--then Barry suddenly tensed. Had it been a ruse? Was this man a friend, a companion--even an accomplice of the thin-faced, frost-gnarled Thayer--and had his simple statement been an effort to take Barry off his guard? If so, it had not succeeded, for Barry had made no admissions. But it all affected him curiously; it nettled him and puzzled him. For a long time he was silent, merely staring at the grinning features of Ba'tiste. At last:
”I should think you would wait until you could consult a doctor before you'd say a thing like that.”
”So? It has been done.”
”And he told you--”
”Nothing. He does not need to even speak to Ba'teese.” A great chuckle shook the big frame ”Ba'teese know as soon as _l' M'sieu Doctaire_.”
”On good terms, aren't you? When's he coming again?”
”_Parbleu_!” The big man snapped his fingers. ”Peuff! Like that.
Ba'teese call heem, and he is here.”
Houston blinked. Then, in spite of his aching head, and the pain of the swollen, splint-laced arm he sat up in bed.
”What kind of--”
”Old Ba'teese, he mus' joke,” came quickly and seriously from the other man. ”Ba'teese--he is heem.”
”A doctor?”
Slowly the big man nodded. Barry went on ”I--I--didn't know. I thought you were just a trapper. I wondered--”