Part 50 (2/2)
”Well, I surmise it would be difficult, but I wish somethin' would happen.”
XVIII
THE DON'S RECOVERY
Ike had his wish; for, when one day his business took him to the Fort, the stage brought a stranger asking the way to Mr. Macgregor's house, and immediately Ike undertook to convoy him thither. It was The Don.
Shock's shout of welcome did Ike good, but the meeting between the two men no one saw. After the first warm greeting Shock began to be aware of a great change in his friend. He was as a man whose heart has been chilled to the core, cold, hard, irresponsive. Toward Shock himself The Don was unchanged in affection and admiration, but toward all the world he was a different man from the one Shock had known in college days.
In Shock's work he was mildly interested, but toward all that stood for religion he cherished a feeling of bitterness amounting to hatred.
True, out of respect he attended Shock's services, but he remained unmoved through all; so that, after the first joy in his friend's companions.h.i.+p, the change in him brought Shock a feeling of pain, and he longed to help him.
”We will have to get him to work,” he said to the doctor, to whom he had confided The Don's history in part, not omitting the great grief that had fallen upon him.
”A wise suggestion,” replied the doctor, who had been attracted by his young brother in the profession, ”a wise suggestion. This country, however, is painfully free from all endemic or epidemic diseases.”
”Well, doctor, you know we ought to get that hospital going in the Pa.s.s. Let us talk it over with him.”
At the first opportunity Shock set forth his plans for the physical and moral redemption of the lumbermen and miners of the Pa.s.s.
”I have seen the most ghastly cuts and bruises on the chaps in the lumber camps,” he said, ”and the miners are always blowing themselves up, and getting all sorts of chest troubles, not to speak of mountain fever, rheumatism, and the like. There is absolutely no place for them to go. Hickey's saloon is vile, noisy, and full of bugs. Ugh! I'll never forget the night I put in there. I can feel them yet. And besides, Hickey has a gang about him that make it unsafe for any man to go there in health, much less in sickness. Why, the stories they tell are perfectly awful. A fellow goes in with his month's pay. In one night his fifty or sixty dollars are gone, no one knows how. The poor chap is drunk, and he cannot tell. When a prospector comes down from the hills and sells a prospect for a good figure, from a hundred to five hundred dollars, and sometimes more, these fellows get about him and roll him. In two weeks he is kicked out, half dead. Oh, Hickey is a villain, and he is in league with the red-light houses, too. They work together, to the physical and moral d.a.m.nation of the place. We want a clean stopping-place, a club-room, and above everything else a hospital. Why, when the miners and lumbermen happen to get off the same night the blood flows, and there is abundant practice for any surgeon for a week or so.”
”Sounds exciting,” said The Don, mildly interested. ”Why don't you go up, doctor?”
”It is not the kind of practice I desire. My tastes are for a gentler mode of life. The dangers of the Pa.s.s are too exciting for me. They are a quaint people,” the doctor continued, ”primitive in their ideas and customs, pre-historic, indeed, in their practice of our n.o.ble art. I remember an experience of mine, some years ago now, which made a vivid impression upon me at the time, and indeed, I could not rid myself of the effects for many days, for many days.”
”What was that, doctor?” enquired Shock, scenting a story.
”Well, it is a very interesting tale, a very interesting tale. Chiefly so as an ill.u.s.tration of how, in circ.u.mstances devoid of the amenities of civilised life, the human species tends toward barbarism. A clear case of reversion to type. There was a half-breed family living in the Pa.s.s, by the name of Goulais, and with the family lived Goulais'
brother, by name Antoine, or, if you spelled it as they p.r.o.nounced it, it would be 'Ontwine.' The married one's name was Pierre. Antoine was a lumberman, and in the pursuit of his avocation he caught a severe cold, which induced a violent inflammation of the bowels, causing very considerable distension and a great deal of pain. Being in the neighbourhood attending some cases of fever, I was induced by some friends of the Goulais to call and see the sick man.”
”The moment I opened the door I was met by a most pungent odour, a most pungent odour. Indeed, though I have experienced most of the smells that come to one in the practice of our profession, this odour had a pungency and a nauseating character all its own. Looking into the room I was startled to observe the place swimming with blood, literally swimming with blood. Blood on the floor, blood upon the bed, and dripping from it.”
”'What does this mean? Is someone being murdered? Whence this blood?'”
”'Non! non!” exclaimed Mrs. Goulais. ”There is no one keel. It is one cat blood.'”
”Approaching the bed to obtain a nearer view of the patient, I discovered the cause. Turning down the bed quilt to make an examination, you may imagine my surprise and horror to observe a ghastly and b.l.o.o.d.y object lying across the abdomen of the sick man. A nearer examination revealed this to be an immense cat which had been ripped up from chin to tail, and laid warm and bleeding, with all its appurtenances, upon the unhappy patient. All through the day the brother, Pierre; had been kept busily engaged in hunting up animals of various kinds, which were to be excised in this manner and applied as poultice.”
”In uncivilised communities the animal whose healing virtues are supposed to be most potent is the cat, and the cure is most certainly a.s.sured if the cat be absolutely black, without a single white hair. In this community, however, deprived of many of the domestic felicities, the absence of cats made it necessary for poor Pierre to employ any animal on which he could lay his hands; so, throughout the day, birds and beasts, varied in size and character, were offered upon this altar.
The cat which I discovered, however, was evidently that upon which their hopes most firmly rested; for, upon the failure of other animals, recourse would be had to the cat, which had been kept in reserve. The state of preservation suggested this.”
”A very slight examination of the patient showed me that there was practically no hope of his recovery, and that it would be almost useless in me to attempt to change the treatment, and all the more that I should have to overcome not only the prejudices of the patient and of his sister-in-law, but also of his very able-bodied brother, whose devotion to his own peculiar method of treatment amounted to fanaticism. However, I determined to make an attempt. I prepared hot fomentations, removed the cat, and made my first application. But no sooner had I begun my treatment than I heard Pierre returning with a freshly slaughtered animal in his hand. The most lively hope, indeed, triumph, was manifest in his excited bearing. He bore by the tail an animal the character of which none of us were in doubt from the moment Pierre appeared in sight. It was the mephitis mephitica, that mephitine musteloid carnivore with which none of us desire a close acquaintance, which announces its presence without difficulty at a very considerable distance; in short, the animal vulgarly known as the skunk.”
”'Voila!' exclaimed Pierre, holding the animal up for our admiration.
'Dis feex him queek.”
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