Books: THE PROSPECTOR
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RALPH CONNOR >> THE PROSPECTOR
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The doctor stood for some moments after he had finished his
examination, looking down upon the little white face, so wasted, so
beautiful. Then he shook has head sorrowfully.
"Ah, doctor, darlin'!" burst out Mrs. Carroll. "Don't say the wurrd!
Don't say the wurrd!"
At this Carroll lifted his head and enquired briefly, "Will he get
better, doctor?"
"He has a chance. He has a slight chance."
And with a look at Shock he left the room. After speaking a few
words of comfort and hope to the mother Shock followed the doctor
from the house.
"It is a case for trephining, I fear," said the doctor. "A clear
case. It is the only chance he has, and it ought to be done at
once."
"You mean to-day?" asked Shock.
"Yes, to-day. But--" The doctor hesitated. "I am not ready."
"I could get your instruments and anything else you might order,"
said Shock eagerly.
"No, it is not that," said the doctor. "The truth is, I have not the
nerve. Nice confession to make, isn't it? Look at that hand."
He held out his hand as he spoke, and Shock saw that not only the
hand, but the whole arm, indeed the whole gaunt frame of the doctor,
was all in a tremble. Shock's experience in the city wards made him
realise something of the shame and humiliation of the moment to the
doctor. He hastened to turn his attention in a happier direction.
"You have performed this operation before?"
"Yes, frequently in the old country, once or twice here. I have seen
some practice, sir," said the doctor, straightening himself up. "But
there it is," holding out again his shaking hand.
"Well," said Shock, "we must wait till--till everything is ready."
"Yes," said the doctor. "Not before three days would I dare to touch
a knife. In three days, sir, I shall return, bringing all the
appliances necessary, and in the interval the time will not be
entirely lost. We shall take every means to tone the boy up. By the
way, I suppose there is someone in the village with sufficient nerve
to render assistance?"
"I do not know. There is only one man in this country whom I can
think of as being reliable for an affair of this kind. Do you happen
to know of the cowboy, Ike?"
"The very man," said the doctor. "He lives on the Stanton ranch
between this and the fort. We can see him on our way."
Before the doctor left for home he had called to prepare the
Carrolls for the operation. At first Tim would not hear of it. He
fiercely declared that he would kill any man that dared put a knife
on his lad. His wife was equally determined that the operation
should not take place.
"Very well," said the doctor, "then your boy will die, and, Carroll,
I shall have you arrested for manslaughter forthwith."
This aspect of the case made little impression upon Carroll.
"If the lad dies," he said hoarsely, "divil a care what happens to
me."
But Mrs. Carroll became anxiously desirous. that the operation
should be performed.
"And sure the good God wouldn't be after takin' him from us, for
didn't his riverence there put up a prayer that would melt the heart
of the angels, and I did promise God meself a rale fast, with niver
an egg nor a bit of a fish to my teeth, if he should lave him wid
us. And Carroll, darlin', ye'll not be after breakin' ye're wife's
heart, nor makin' her a widow? Just ye come on, doctor, and niver a
word he'll say till ye."
And so it came, in three days that the doctor returned, clean,
steady, and fit for his work, with Ike, Shock, and The Kid on hand
as his assistants.
"I asked the doctor if I might come along," said the latter,
explaining his presence, "and though he did not encourage me, here I
am."
"We will make him nurse or outside guard," said Shock. "We will give
him full charge of the family."
"Yes," replied the doctor, in his gentle, professional voice, "the
family. Let them be removed to some distance. The house must be kept
entirely quiet, entirely quiet. An interruption might be serious.
Mr. and Mrs. Carroll and the children had better be taken away to
some remote distance, so that we may have in the house perfect
peace--perfect peace."
But in Carroll they met an unexpected difficulty.
"Not a fut of me will I lave," he announced, and from this position
was immovable.
"Let us say no more at present," said the doctor quietly to his
assistants. "There are various methods of removing an obstruction. I
have found various methods."
And so The Kid, with Mrs. Carroll, Tim, Nora, Eileen, Jimmie, and
little Michael, set of for Jumping Rock at the lake. After the
procession had formed, however, another difficulty arose. Michael
refused point blank to go, and on being urged threw himself down
upon the ground and kicked and yelled vociferously.
"Indade, there's no use of tryin' to make him do what he don't
want," said his mother, with a conviction born of long experience of
Michael's tempers and ways.
The procession halted, The Kid looking helpless and foolish. In vain
he offered his watch, his pistol with the charge drawn. All his
possessions availed not at all.
In his desperation he was on the point of proceeding to extreme
measures when a voice, singularly sweet and musical, sounded behind
him.
"Perhaps I can help," it said.
The Kid swung round, hat in hand. It was Marion, the Old
Prospector's daughter.
"I shall be profoundly thankful. And for that matter doubtless he
will, too, for I had come to the conclusion that the situation
demanded a change of tactics."
The girl sat down beside Michael, and lifting him to her knee began
to beguile him from his present misery with promises of songs, and
snatches of tales, whose powers of enchantment had evidently been
proved in similar circumstances, till finally his interest was
diverted, his curiosity excited, and at length Michael was persuaded
to join the company with smiling expectation of good things to come.
"I wish you would confide to me the secret of your power, Miss--"
said The Kid, with a most courteous bow.
"I am Marion Mowbray," she said simply.
"Miss Mowbray," continued The Kid, "I know your father very well,
and"--looking into the girl's eyes, so very piercing and so very
black--"I should like to know his daughter, too."
But Marion devoted herself chiefly to Michael, giving such attention
as she could to the older and more active and more venturous Eileen
and Jimmie, and The Kid found his duties to Mrs. Carroll, Tim, and
Nora so engrossing that he had little time to bestow any further
attention upon the girl.
While Marion with tales and songs held the younger portion in an
enthralled circle about her upon the Jumping Rock, The Kid upon the
lake shore below was using his most strenuous endeavours to make the
hour pass happily for Mrs. Carroll, Tim, and Nora.
Meantime, in the back room of the Stopping-Place Dr. Burton was
making his preparations for a very critical operation. All his
movements were marked by a swift dexterity and an attention to
detail that gave Shock the impression that here was a man not only a
master of his art, but, for the time being at least, master of
himself. He laid out and thoroughly disinfected his instruments,
prepared his lint, bandages, sponges, and explained clearly to each
of his two assistants the part he was to take. Shock, who had had
some slight experience in the surgical operations attendant upon an
active football career, was to be the assistant in chief, being
expected to take charge of the instruments, and to take part, if
necessary, in the actual operation. Ike was instructed to be in
readiness with a basin, sponge, and anything else that might be
demanded.
"We shall not give you much to do," said the doctor, "but what you
have to do must be done promptly and well. Now, then," he continued,
lifting his scissors with a flourish which did not fail to impress
Carroll, who was seated near by, "we shall proceed."
"Will it hurt, doctor?" groaned Carroll, gazing upon the row of
instruments with fascinated eyes.
"Before we are finished it is quite possible the patient may be
conscious of nervous disturbance, accompanied by sensations more or
less painful."
"Will it hurt, blank you!" replied Carroll, whose hoarse voice
showed the intensity of his repressed emotion.
"As I was saying," said the doctor in his calm, even tone, and
examining his instruments one by one with affectionate care, "there
is every possibility that the nerve centres may be--"
"Oh," groaned Carroll, still fascinated by the instruments that the
doctor was handling with such loving touches, "will someone shut up
this blank, blatherin' fool? He'd drive a man crazy, so he wud!"
"Mr. Carroll, we must be calm. We must be entirely calm," observed
the doctor. "Now," continuing his monologue, "we shall remove the
hair from the field of operation. Cleanliness in an operation of
this kind is of prime importance. Recent scientific investigations
show that the chief danger in operations is from septic poisoning.
Yes, every precaution must be taken. Then we shall bathe with this
weak solution of carbolic--three percent will be quite sufficient,
quite sufficient--the injured parts and the surrounding area, and
then we shall examine the extent of the wound. If the dura mater be
penetrated, and the arachnoid cavity be opened, then there will be
in all probability a very considerable extravasation of blood, and
by this time, doubtless, serious inflammation of all the surrounding
tissues. The aperture being very small and the depression somewhat
extensive, it will be necessary to remove--to saw out, in short--a
portion of the skull," lifting up a fierce-looking instrument.
Carroll groaned.
"Let me out!" he whispered hoarsely, rising and feeling his way with
outstretched hand to the door. "I can't stand this bloody divil!"
Ike opened the door, while Shock sprang to support the groping man.
"Lave me be!" he said fiercely, with a curse, and pushing Shock back
he stumbled out.
"Ah," said the doctor, with evident satisfaction, "there are various
methods of removing obstructions, as I have said. We shall now no
longer delay." And he proceeded to clip away the golden curls from
about the wound. "These," he said, holding them up in his fingers
and looking at them admiringly, "we had better preserve. These
beautiful locks may be priceless to the mother, priceless indeed.
Poor, bonnie laddie! Now we shall prepare, we shall aseptically
prepare, the whole field of operation. A sponge that's it. That will
do. Now, let us examine the extent of the injury," feeling with
dextrous fingers about the edge of the slight wound, and over all
the depressed surface.
"Ah! as I feared. The internal table is widely comminuted, and there
is possibly injury to the dura mater. We must excise a small portion
of the bone. The scalpel, please." Then, after laying back with a
few swift, dexterous movements the scalp from about the wounded
parts: "The saw. Yes, the saw. The removal of a section," he
continued, in his gentle monotone, beginning to saw, "will allow
examination of the internal table. A sponge, please. Thank you. And
if the dura mater--" Here the stillness of the room was broken by a
sound from Ike. The doctor glanced at him.
"This is a very simple part of the operation," he explained, "a very
simple part, indeed, and attended with absolutely no pain. A sponge,
please. Thank you. Now the forceps. Yes."
He snipped off a section of the bone. Ike winced "Ah, as I feared.
There is considerable comminution and extravasation. Yes, and owing
to the long delay, and doubtless to the wet applications which the
uninitiated invariably apply, pus. Now, the carbolic solution," to
Ike, who was standing with white face and set teeth.
"You are doing remarkably well," said the doctor encouragingly to
him, "remarkably well. To a novice this at times presents a shocking
aspect. Now we shall attack this depression. The elevator, please.
No, the elevator, Mr. Macgregor. There it lies. Yes. Now gently,
gently. Just hold that in position," offering Shock the end of the
instrument which he was using as a lever to raise the depressed
portion of the skull. "The other scalpel, please. Now, a slight
pressure. Gently, gently. We must be extremely careful of the edges.
No, that will not do. Then we must have recourse to the trephine."
He lifted the instrument as he spoke, and gazed at it with every
mark of affection.
"This is one of the most beautiful of all the instruments of modern
surgery. A lovely instrument, a lovely instrument, indeed. Let us
secure our firm surface. That seems satisfactory," beginning to
bore.
This was too much for Ike. He hastily set down the basin and sponge
on a chair, then straightened up in a vain effort to regain mastery
of himself.
"Ah," said the doctor. "Poor Ike! The spirit is willing, but the
sympathetic nerve is evidently seriously disturbed, thereby
affecting the vasomotor, and will likely produce complete syncope.
Lay him down on his back immediately."
"No," said Ike, "I aint no good. I'm going out."
"Now," said the doctor calmly, when Shock and he had been left
alone, "I hope there will be no more interruption. We must proceed
with the trephining. Ah, beautiful, beautiful!" his quick moving,
deft fingers keeping pace with his monologue.
"There now," after a few minutes' work with the trephine, "the
depression is lifted. We shall soon be finished."
With supple, firm fingers he sewed the scalp, dressed the wound, and
was done.
"Thank God!" said Shock, with a long breath. "Will he live?"
"It is a question now of strength and vitality. If the inflammation
is not too widely extended the child may recover. Young life is very
tenacious."
The doctor washed his hands, wiped his instruments, put them
carefully away in their case, and sat down.
"Doctor," said Shock, "that is a great work. Even to a layman that
operation seems wonderful."
Under the stimulus of his professional work the doctor's face, which
but two days before had been soft and flabby, seemed to have taken
on a firmer, harder appearance, and his whole manner, which had been
shuffling and slovenly, had become alert and self-reliant.
"A man who can do that, doctor, can do great things."
A shadow fell on his face. The look of keen intelligence became
clouded. His very frame lost its erect poise, and seemed to fall
together. His professional air of jaunty cheerfulness forsook him.
He huddled himself down into his chair, put his face in his hands,
and shuddered.
"My dear sir," he said, lifting up his face, "it is quite useless,
quite hopeless."
"No," said Shock eagerly, "do not say that. Surely the Almighty God-
-"
The doctor put up his hand.
"I know all you would say. How often have I heard it! The fault is
not with the Almighty, but with myself. I am still honest with
myself, and yet--" Here he paused for some moments. "I have tried--
and I have failed. I am a wreck. I have prayed--prayed with tears
and groans. I have done my best. But I am beyond help."
For a full minute Shock stood, gazing sadly at the noble head, the
face so marred, the huddling form. He knew something of the agony of
remorse, humiliation, fear, and despair that the man was suffering.
"Dr. Burton," said Shock, with the air of a man who has formed a
purpose, "you are not telling the truth, sir."
The doctor looked up with a flash of indignation in his eyes.
"You are misrepresenting facts in two important particulars. You
have just said that you have done your best, and that you are beyond
all help. The simple truth is you have neither done your best, nor
are you beyond help."
"Beyond help!" cried the doctor, starting up and beginning to pace
the floor, casting aside his usual gentle manner. "You use plain
speech, sir, but your evident sincerity forbids resentment. If you
knew my history you would agree with me that I state the simple
truth when I declare that I am beyond help. You see before you, sir,
the sometime President of the Faculty of Guy's, London, a man with a
reputation second to none in the Metropolis. But neither reputation,
nor fortune, nor friends could avail to save me from this curse. I
came to this country in desperation. It was a prohibition country.
Cursed be those who perpetrated that fraud upon the British public!
If London be bad, this country, with its isolation, its monotony of
life, and this damnable permit system, is a thousand times worse.
God pity the fool who leaves England in the hope of recovering his
manhood and freedom here. I came to this God-forsaken, homeless
country with some hope of recovery in my heart. That hope has long
since vanished. I am now beyond all help."
"No," said Shock in a quiet, firm voice, "you have told me nothing
to prove that you are beyond help. "In fact," he continued almost
brusquely, "no man of sense and honesty has a right to say that.
"Yes," he continued, in answer to the doctor's astonished look,
"salvation, as it is called, is a matter of common sense and
honesty."
"I thought you clergymen preached salvation to be a matter of
faith."
"Faith, yes. That is the same thing. Common sense, I call it. A man
is a fool to think he is beyond help while he has life. A little
common sense and honesty is all you want. Now, let us find Carroll.
But, doctor, let my last word to you be this--do not ever say or
think what you have said to me to-day, It simply is not true. And I
repeat, the man who can do that sort of thing," pointing to the
child lying on the bed, "can do a great deal more. Good things are
waiting you."
"Oh, Lord God Almighty!" said the doctor, throwing up his hands in
the intensity of his emotion. "You almost make me think there is
some hope."
"Don't be a fool, doctor," said Shock in a matter of fact voice.
"You are going to recover your manhood and your reputation. I know
it. But as I said before, remember I expect common sense and
honesty."
"Common sense and honesty," said the doctor as if to himself. "No
religion."
"There you are," said Shock. "I did not say that. I did say common
sense and honesty. But now, do go and find poor Carroll. He will be
in agony."
"Oh, a little of it won't hurt him. He is rather an undeveloped
specimen," said the doctor, resuming his professional tone.
In a few minutes he returned with Carroll, whose face was contorted
with his efforts to seem calm.
"Tell me," he said to Shock. "Will the lad live?"
"The operation is entirely successful, thanks to the skill of Dr.
Burton there."
"Will he live?" said Carroll to the doctor in a husky tone.
"Well, he has a chance--a chance now which before he had not; and if
he does, you owe it to Mr. Macgregor there."
"And if he doesn't, I shall owe that to him," hissed Carroll through
his clenched teeth.
For this Shock had no reply.
"I shall go for Mrs. Carroll and the children now," he said quietly,
and passed out of the room.
"Carroll," said the doctor with stern deliberation, "I have always
known you to be a bully, but never before that you were a brute.
This man saved your child's life at very considerable danger to his
own. And a second time--if the child recovers he has saved his life,
for had the operation not been performed today your child would have
died, and you would have been arrested for manslaughter."
"Doctor," said Carroll, turning upon him, and standing nervous and
shaking, "it is that man or me. The country won't hold us both."
"Then, Carroll, let me tell you, you had better move out, for that
man won't move till he wants to. Why, bless my soul, man, he could
grind you up in his hands. And as for nerve--well, I have seen some
in my professional career, but never such as his. My advice to you
is, do not trifle with him."
"Blank his sowl! I'll be even wid him," said Carroll, pouring out a
stream of oaths.
"Dad." The weak voice seemed to pierce through Carroll's curses like
a shaft of light through a dark room.
Carroll dropped on his knees by the bedside in a rush of tears.
"Ah, Patsy, my Patsy! Is it your own voice I'm hearin'?"
"Dad, darlin', ye didn't mane it, did ye, dad?"
"What, Patsy?"
"To hit me."
"Ah, may God forgive me! but it's meself would sooner die than
strike ye."
The little lad drew a deep breath of content.
"And the big man," he said. "He put out his hand over me. Ye didn't
hurt him, dad, did ye?"
"No, no, Patsy, darlin'," said the big Irishman, burying his face in
the pillow. "Speak to your dad again wid your lovely voice."
"Now, Carroll," said the doctor in a stern whisper. "That is enough.
Not a word more. Do you want to kill your child?"
Carroll at once with a tremendous effort grew still, stroking the
white hand he held in his, and kissing the golden curls that
streamed across the pillow, whispering over and over, "Patsy,
darlin'!" till the doctor, hardened as he was to scenes like this,
was forced to steal out from the room and leave them together.
XIV
THE OLD PROSPECTOR'S AWAKING
For six weeks the Old Prospector lay fretting his life away in his
shack, not so ill as to be in danger. The pneumonia had almost
disappeared and the rheumatism had subsided, but yet such grave
symptoms remained as made the doctor forbid his setting forth upon
his annual quest of the Lost River. In these days his chief comfort
was Shock, whose old habit of sharing his experiences in imagination
with those who could not share them in reality, relieved for the Old
Prospector many a monotonous hour.
But Shock's days, and most of his nights, even, were spent upon the
trail rounding up "strays and mavericks," as Ike said, searching out
the lonely bachelor shacks, and lonelier homes where women dwelt
whose husbands' days were spent on the range, and whose nearest
neighbour might be eight or ten miles away, bringing a touch of the
outer world, and leaving a gleam of the light that he carried in his
own sunny, honest face.
And so Shock soon came to know more of the far back settlers than
did even the oldest timer; and, what was better, he began to
establish among them some sort of social life. It was Shock, for
instance, that discovered old Mrs. Hamilton and her two sons, and
drove her after much persuasion eight miles over "The Rise," past
which she had not set her foot for the nine long, sad years that had
dragged out their lonely length since her husband left her alone
with her two boys of seven and nine, to visit Mrs. Macnamara, the
delicate wife of the rollicking Irish rancher, who, seldom out of
the saddle himself, had never been able to understand the heart-
hunger that only became less as her own life ran low. It was her
little family growing up about her, at once draining her vitality
but, thank God, nourishing in her heart hope and courage, that
preserved for her faith and reason. It was a great day for the
Macnamaras when their big fiend drove over their next neighbour,
Mrs. Hamilton, to make her first call.
Another result of Shock's work became apparent in the gradual
development of Loon Lake, or "The Lake," as it was most frequently
named, into a centre of social life. In the first place a school had
been established, in which Marion had been installed as teacher, and
once the children came to the village it was easier for the parents
to find their way thither.
Every week, too, The Kid and Ike found occasions to visit The Lake
and call for Shock, who made his home, for the most part, with the
Old Prospector. Every week, too, the doctor would appear to pay a
visit to his patients; but, indeed, in some way or other the doctor
was being constantly employed on cases discovered by Shock. The
Macnamara's baby with the club-foot, Scrub Kettle's girl with the
spinal trouble; Lawrence Delamere, the handsome young English lad up
in "The Pass," whose leg, injured in a mine accident, never would
heal till the doctor had scraped the bone--these and many others
owed their soundness to Shock's prospecting powers and to the
doctor's skill. And so many a mile they drove together to their
mutual good. For, while the doctor prosecuted with delight and
diligence his healing art, all unconsciously he himself was
regaining something of his freedom and manhood.
"Digs 'em up, don't he?" said Ike one Sunday, when the second flat
of Jim Ross's store was filled with men and women who, though they
had lived in the country for from two to twenty years, were still
for the most part strangers to each other. "Digs 'em up like the
boys dig the badgers. Got to come out of their holes when he gits
after 'em."
"Dat's so," said Perault, who had become an ardent follower of
Shock's. "Dat's so. All same lak ole boss."
"Prospector, eh?" said Ike.
"Oui. Prospector, sure enough, by gar!" replied Perault, with the
emphasis of a man who has stumbled upon a great find; and the name
came at once to be recognised as so eminently suitable that from
that time forth it stuck, and all the more that before many weeks
there was none to dispute the title with him.
All this time the Old Prospector fretted and wasted with an inward
fever that baffled the doctor's skill, and but for the visits of his
friends and their constant assurances that next week would see him
fit, the old man would have succumbed.
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