“We’ve got ’em beat.”

The man of healing recovered the sick man’s feet with the blanket, and rolled the old dressings he had just removed into a bundle ready for the camp-fire outside.

“You mean ”

Steve was lying in his blankets propped into a half-sitting position.  A candle, stuck in the neck of a bottle, lit the tent sufficiently for Ian Ross to complete his work.

“Why, the evil spirits of Unaga, I guess,” he replied, with a forced lightness.  Then he shook his head.  “They did their best sure.  Another week or so and you’d have moved about on stumps the rest of your life.  And I’m reckoning that would have been the best you could have hoped.  It’s been a darned near thing.”

Steve nodded.  His manner was curiously indifferent.

“How’s the boy?” he demanded abruptly.

Ross put his instruments away and set the water bowl aside.  Then he set the stoppered bottles back into his case.

“He’ll be ‘whooping’ it up with the boys in a couple of days,” he said.

“An-ina?”

“Beating the ‘reaper’ out of sight.”

Steve drew a deep breath.

“Oolak was all to pieces,” he said doubtfully.

“He was about as broken as he could be and still hang together.  He’s been a tough case.”  It was the doctor’s turn to take a deep breath.  “He’ll be a man again.  But I wouldn’t gamble on his shape.  Say, Steve, it’s the biggest bluff I’ve seen put up against death.  Those darn niggers who toted your boats, they’re tickled to death with the food the boys hand out to them.  And as for Julyman he’s as near cast iron as as you.”

“Yes, it was pretty tough.”

“Tough?  Gee!”

The doctor’s final exclamation was one of genuine amazement.

“It’s near three weeks since we hauled the remains of you from that skitter-ridden river,” he went on, “and a deal’s happened in that time.  Jack Belton’s gone in for stores, and to report.  We’ve shifted camp where the flies, and bugs, and things’ll let you folks forget the darn river, and the nightmare I guess you dreamt on it.  You’re all beating the game, some of you by yards, and others by inches.  But you’re beating it.  And I’m still guessing at those things you all know like you were born to ’em.  When are you going to hand me the yarn, Steve?  When are you going to feel like thinking about the things that two weeks ago looked like leaving you plumb crazed?”

Steve knitted his brows.  To the man watching him it seemed as if the sudden recalling of the past was still a thing to be avoided.  But his diagnosis was in error.  Steve became impatient.

“Oh hell!” he exclaimed.  “Do you need me to hand it you?  Do you need me to tell you the fool stunt I played to beat schedule, and get back to Nita and the kiddie?  Do you need to know about a darn territory that every Indian north of 60 deg. is scared to death of?  A territory only fit for devils and such folk, like the neches reckon it’s peopled with?  Do you want to hear about an outfit that found everything Nature ever set for the world’s biggest fools?  Do you want to know about storms that leave the worst Northern trails a summer picnic, and muskegs and tundra that leave you searching for something bigger than miles to measure with, and barren, fly-ridden territory without a leaf or blade of grass and scored every way at once with rifts and water canyons so you can’t tell the north from the Desert of Sahara?  If you do, read the old report I’ve been writing.  I’ll hand you a story that won’t shout credit for the feller who designed it.  But it’ll tell you of the guts of the folk who stood behind him every darn step of the way, and made him crazy to get them through alive.  If you’d asked me that two weeks ago I’d have cried like a babe.  Now it’s different.  You’ve got a sick woman under your hands now, Doc, and two copper coloured neches.  And when I say they’re the world’s best, why I just mean it.”

A deep flush of emotion underlaid the toughened skin of Steve’s face.  He was deeply stirred by the thoughts and feelings which the other’s demand had conjured.

The doctor glanced down at the sheets of paper on which Steve had written his report.  But he made no attempt to accept the invitation to read it.  The moment had come to tell this man of that disaster which yet awaited him.  So he had sought to test him in the only fashion that lay to his hand.  The break which had so sorely threatened in the reaction following upon Steve’s rescue had been completely averted, and the Scotsman felt that now, at last, he was strong enough to bear the truth which he had denied him on his first enquiry after his wife and child.

The flush died out of Steve’s cheeks.  The steady eyes were never more steady as they looked into the strong face before them.  He ran his fingers through his long dark hair, and resettled his shoulders against the pile of blankets supporting them.

“It kind of startles you to find guts in folks when you’re up against it.  You can’t help it.  Maybe it’s conceit makes you feel that way,” he went on quietly.  “Those two boys of mine, and An-ina.  You couldn’t beat ’em.  Nothing could.  When Oolak dropped over the side of a canyon, with most of the outfit the reindeer went with him.  You see, we’d rid ourselves of the dogs.  We couldn’t feed ’em.  Well, I guessed the end had come.  But it hadn’t.  Julyman and An-ina took up the work of hauling, while I carried Marcel.  Only they hauled Oolak instead of the outfit.  They hauled him for nigh on a month, and we lived on dog meat till it got putrid, and even then didn’t feel like giving it up.  I didn’t have to worry a thing except for their sanity.  You see, they were Indian for all their grit, and I just didn’t know.  It was tough, Doc!  Oh, gee! it was tough!  And when you’ve read the stuff I’ve doped out for headquarters you won’t need me to talk if you’ve two cents of imagination about you.  If you’d asked me awhile back, when I asked you about Nita, and my little girl, and you told me they were good and happy, and crazy to have me back, as I said, I’d have cried like a kid.  Yes, and I guess you’d have needed a gun to hold me here while you hacked those slabs off my feet.  But it’s right now.  My head was never clearer, and there’s just one thought in it.  It’s to get back to Deadwater.”

The doctor listened with a surge of feeling driving through his heart.  His own words, the words he had told to the man whom he knew at the time to be floundering on the edge of a complete mental breakdown, were ringing through his brain.  He had lied.  He had had to lie.  And now

He took refuge in his pipe.  He knew he would need it.  He filled it from the pouch which had become common between them and urged Steve to do the same.  In a few moments both men were smoking in an atmosphere of perfect calm.

“You were pretty bad that time,” Ross said steadily.  “Yes, I don’t guess you know how bad you were.”

“I think I do now.”

The doctor seemed to be absorbed in pressing down the tobacco in his pipe.  He struck another match.

“The strain had been so big the break must have come if you’d had to go on,” he said, blowing smoke till it partly obscured his patient’s unflinching eyes.  “You were weak physically.  There was nothing to support your nerve and brain.  It was in your eyes.  You scarcely recognized us.  You hardly knew what our presence meant to you.  And, later, the reaction made things even worse for you.  A shock, and the balance would have gone hopelessly.  So I lied to you!”

“You lied to me?”

The pipe had been suddenly jerked from Steve’s lips.  He was sitting up.  A sudden fierce light had leapt to his eyes.

The Scotsman, too, had removed his pipe.  His eyes were squarely confronting the other.  All his mental force and bodily energy were summoned to his aid.

“Yes.  I had to lie,” he said firmly.  “It was that or carry you back to Deadwater a crazy man.  I was the doctor then.  Guess I’m a man now.  Maybe you won’t reckon there’s a difference.  But there surely is.  You see, I’m not going to lie.  I don’t need to.  Nita isn’t at my shanty.  She isn’t at Deadwater.  Neither is Garstaing.  And they’ve taken your little girl with them.”

“They?”

The man on the blankets had moved again.  His knees were drawn up as though he were about to spring from the sick bed he was still condemned to.

Ross nodded.

“Yes.”  Then he pointed at the attitude of the other.  “Say, straighten out, Steve.  Push those feet down under the blankets.  You’re a big man up against disaster most times.  Well, don’t forget it.  You’re up against disaster now.  Sit back, boy, and get a grip on yourself.  It’s the only way.  I’ve got to tell you the whole rotten story, and when I’ve done I’ll ask you to forget the way I had to lie to you.  If you can’t, why it’s up to you.  My duty was to heal you first, and I don’t guess there’s any rules in the game.”

Ross was talking for time.  He had to be sure.  He was ready at a sign to launch into his story, but he was looking for that sign.

And Steve gave it.  It was the only sign the other would accept.  Ross was a powerful man, and Steve was still sick and weak.  These things are as well when a man knows that his purpose means the breaking of a strong heart.  Steve slid his injured feet down under the blankets.  His legs straightened out, and he leant his back against the pillow.  But his pipe was laid aside, and a quickening of his breathing warned the other of the immense effort for restraint he was putting forth.

“Tell me,” he said.  Then he added with a sudden note of sharpness, “Quick!”

The Scotsman nodded.

“It’s best that way.  Garstaing and Nita bolted.  They took your little girl with them.  It’s six months ago.  When the Indian Treaty Money came up.  Hervey Garstaing waited for that.  The Indians never saw it.  He pouched it, and beat the trail, as I said, with Nita and the kiddie.  Say, I needn’t tell you more than that.  I don’t know any more except the police have been chasing his trail since.”

He fumbled in a pocket, and drew out a sealed envelope addressed in a woman’s handwriting, and another that was opened.  The sealed envelope he passed across to Steve.  The other he retained.

“She left these two letters in her room,” he went on.  “That’s for you, and this one was for Millie.  Maybe you’ll read yours later.  This one you’d best read now.  It’s just a line as you’ll see.”

He held the letter out and Steve accepted it.  And Ross watched him all the time as he drew the note from its cover and perused it.  The moment of shock had passed, and the fierce light in Steve’s eyes had died out, leaving in its place a stony frigidity which gave the other a feeling of unutterable regret.  He would have been thankful for some passionate outburst, some violent display.  He felt it would have been more natural, and he would have known better how to deal with it.  But there was none.  Steve returned the letter to its envelope and remained silently regarding the superscription.

“It’s a bad letter,” Ross went on.  “If I thought Nita had written it herself I’d say you’re well rid of something that would have cursed the rest of your life.  But the stuff that’s written there is the stuff that comes out of Garstaing’s rotten head.  I’d bet my soul on it.  She says her marriage with you was a mistake.  She didn’t know.  She had no experience when she married you.  She needs the things the world can show her.  The North is driving her crazy.  All that muck.  It’s the sort of stuff that hasn’t a gasp of truth in it.  If there was you need to thank God you’re quit of her.  No.  That hound of hell told her what to say.  Poor little fool.  He’s got her where he wants her, and she’s as much chance as an angel in hell.  She went in the night, and they took a storming night for it.  There was two feet of snow on the ground, and more falling.  How she went we can’t guess.  There wasn’t a track or a sign in the morning, and it went on storming for days, so even the police couldn’t follow them up.  The whole thing was well planned, and Garstaing took no sort of chances.  He got away with nearly fifty thousand dollars of Indian money, and, so far, hasn’t left a trace.  We don’t know to this day if he made north, south, east, or west.  All we know are these two letters, that they got away in a ‘jumper’ and team, and that Nita and the kiddie were with him.”

“Say, Steve,” Ross went on after a moment’s pause, his voice deepening with an emotion he could no longer deny.  “I handed you a big talk of seeing your Nita and the little kid safe till you got back.  We did all we knew.  Millie and the gals did all they knew.  Nita wanted for nothing.  The things that were good enough for my two we didn’t reckon good enough for her, and we saw she had one better all the time.  Happy?  Gee, she seemed happy all the time, right up to the night she went.  And as for Coqueline she was the greatest ever.  But he’d got her, that skunk had her, and the thing must have been going on all the time.  Still, we never saw a sign.  Not a sign.  Millie never liked Garstaing, and he wasn’t ever encouraged to get around our shanty.  And we had him there less after Nita came.  There’s times I’m guessing it didn’t begin after you went.  There’s times I think there was a beginning earlier.  Millie feels that way, too.  I know it don’t make things better talking this way.  But it’s what I feel, and think, and it’s best to say it right out.  I can’t tell you how I feel about it.  And anyway it wouldn’t make things easier for you.  I promised you, and all I said is not just hot air.  I’m sick to death just sick to death.”

Ross’s voice died away, and the silence it left was heavy with disaster.  Steve had no reply.  No questions.  He seemed utterly and completely beyond words.  His strong eyes were expressionless.  He lay there still, quite still, with his unopened letter lying on the blankets before him.

Ross was no longer observing.  His distress was pitiful.  It was there in his kindly eyes, in the purposeless fashion in which he fingered his pipe.  He was torn between two desires.  One was to continue talking at all costs.  The other was precipitate, ignominious flight from the sight of the other’s voiceless despair.  He knew Steve, and well enough he realized what the strong wall the man had set up in defence concealed.  But he was held there silent by a force he had no power to deny, so he sat and lit, and re-lit a pipe in which the tobacco was entirely consumed.

How long it was before the silence was finally broken he never knew.  It seemed ages.  Ages of intolerable suspense and waiting before Steve displayed any sign beyond the deep rise and fall of his broad chest.  Then, quite suddenly, he reached out for the collected sheets of his official report.  These he laid on the blankets beside the unopened letter his erring wife had addressed to him.  Then he looked into the face of the man whose blow had crushed the very soul of him.  Their eyes met, and, to the doctor, it seemed that mind had triumphed over the havoc wrought.  Steve’s voice came harshly.

“When’ll I be fit to move?” he demanded.

“A week if Belton gets back.”

Ross was startled and wondering.

“Belton don’t cut any ice.”

“But we need the wagon.”

The protest, however, was promptly swept aside.

“I tell you it don’t cut any ice.  I move in a week That’s fixed!”

For some moments Steve became deeply absorbed again.  Then the watching man saw the decision in his eyes waver, and his lean hand move up to his head, and its fingers pass wearily through his long hair.

Then, quite suddenly, a harsh exclamation broke from him.

“Tchah!” he cried.  “What’s the use?”

With a great effort he seemed to pull himself together.  He raised his eyes, and the pitiful half smile in them wrung the Scotsman’s heart.

“Say, Doc, I’m kind of glad it was you handed me this.  It’s hurt you, too.  Hurt you pretty bad.  Yes,” he went on wearily, hopelessly, “pretty bad.  But I got to thank you.  Oh, yes.  I want to thank you.  I mean that.  For all you’ve done to help me.  But I can’t talk about it.  I just can’t.  That’s all.  I don’t guess you need to read the stuff I’ve written now.  You see I’ll need to make another report.”

“Why?”

Ross’s interrogation broke from him almost before he was aware of it.

“Why?” Steve’s eyes widened.  Then they dropped before the questioner’s searching gaze.  “Yes,” he went on dully.  “I’ll need to make a fresh one.  There’s things Say,” he cried, with sudden, almost volcanic passion.  “For God’s sake, why did you get around?  Why didn’t you leave me to the dog’s death that was yearning for me?” He laughed harshly, mirthlessly.  “Death?  There was better than that.  I’d have been crazy in days.  Plumb, stark crazy.  And I wouldn’t have known or cared a thing.”