Part 112 (2/2)
”Look here,” he whispered: ”I--I don't know what you mean, but I'll go along with you, of course, only don't talk before this man. He's sick----” He beckoned the doctor. ”This is the man I brought you to see.” Then he turned his back on the wide, horrified eyes of his friend, saying, ”Back in a minute, Kentucky.” Outside: ”Give me a second, boys, will you?” he said to the N. W. M. P.'s, ”just till I hear what that doctor fella says about my pardner.”
He stood there with the Buckeyes, the police, and the various day gangs that were too excited to go to bed. And he asked them where Austin was found, and other details of the murder, wearily conscious that the friendliest there felt sure that the man who questioned could best fill in the gaps in the story. When the doctor came out, Maudie at his heels firing off quick questions, the Boy hobbled forward.
”Well?”
”Temperature a hundred and four,” said the Dawson doctor.
”Oh, is--is that much or little?”
”Well, it's more than most of us go in for.”
”Can you tell what's the matter with him?”
”Oh, typhoid, of course.”
The Boy pulled his hat over his eyes.
”Guess you won't mind my stayin' now?” said Maudie at his elbow, speaking low.
He looked up. ”You goin' to take care of him? Good care?” he asked harshly.
But Maudie seemed not to mind. The tears went down her cheeks, as, with never a word, she nodded, and turned towards the tent.
”Say,” he hobbled after her, ”that doctor's all right--only wanted fifty.” He laid four hundred-dollar bills in her hand. She seemed about to speak, when he interrupted hoa.r.s.ely, ”And look here: pull the Colonel through, Maudie--pull him through!”
”I'll do my darnedest.”
He held out his hand. He had never given it to her before, and he forgot that few people would care now to take it. But she gave him hers with no grudging. Then, on a sudden, impulse, ”You ain't takin' him to Dawson to-night?” she said to the constable.
He nodded.
”Why, he's done the trip twice already.”
”I can do it again well enough.”
”Then you got to wait a minute.” She spoke to the constable as if she had been Captain Constantine himself. ”Better just go in and see the Colonel,” she said to the Boy. ”He's been askin' for you.”
”N-no, Maudie; I can go to Dawson all right, but I don't feel up to goin' in there again.”
”You'll be sorry if you don't.” And then he knew what a temperature at a hundred and four foreboded.
He went back into the tent, dreading to face the Colonel more than he had ever dreaded anything in his life.
But the sick man lay, looking out drowsily, peacefully, through half-shut eyes, not greatly concerned, one would say, about anything.
The Boy went over and stood under the gray blanket canopy, looking down with a choking sensation that delayed his question: ”How you feelin'
now, Kentucky?”
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