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There was no doubt at all in George Quin's mind as to what had happened, and perhaps he was not wholly surprised. What did surprise him was his own ferocious anger, and the wave of pity that even swallowed up his wrath.
"My God!" said Quin.
There wasn't a man in the City who knew him a little but was prepared to swear that Quin was a brute, and a devil without any feeling to speak of. It was said that he had killed Lily, the Haida girl, when, as a matter of fact, it was his brother, Cultus Muckamuck as the Siwashes called him, who had done a deed like that. He had treated Lily well. Her people said so. He had treated them well, the greedy brutes!
Now Quin was full of pity, and of jealousy. This Bible had hurt her poor weak mind, no doubt of that: and it had driven her back to Pete, perhaps.
"My God," said Quin again, "where else?"
He remembered the screams he had heard coming from Shack-Town as he landed. And as he remembered he found himself running down the hill in the starlit gloom. He wasn't a very young man either. Quin was nearly forty: hard and set: at times a little stiff. Now he went recklessly.
"If Pete——"
It didn't bear thinking of, so Quin wouldn't think of it. He was jealous, hideously jealous. He could have torn Pete asunder with his powerful hands. He felt his nerves in a network within him, and in his skin. They thrilled like fire.
"My poor little Jenny!"
Why, the fact was that he loved her! When one comes to think of it, this was a monstrous discovery for him to make. He had really never loved anyone, certainly not dead Lily, more certainly not that white woman over in Victoria, though he thought he had. What he felt for Jenny was a revelation; it made him a saint and a devil at once, as passion does even the best and worst of men. And Quin had force and fire, and bone, and muscle and a big heavy head and hands like clip-hooks. Now passion shook him as if he were a rag in the wind.
He came down to Shack-Town, and stopped. He was hot but again he sweated ice. He looked down the road and saw figures moving.
"Which is the shack?" he asked himself.
He went past Wong's house, where Jenny lay on a table with ten jabbering Chinamen around her. He heard a high-low sing-song of their chatter and cursed his boy Sam for leaving the house as he had done.
"I'll kick the damn stuffin' out of him," said Quin savagely.
He passed Indian Annie's and saw the group beyond it, standing about Pete's recumbent body. Skookum Charlie was almost in tears to think that Pete would be hanged. Annie wiped her bloody face with her skirt. Annawillee, howling curses at Pete, sat by her.
"What's all this?" said Quin, coming out of the darkness. He saw Pete, or rather saw a body. He spoke hoarsely.
"Mista Quin, oh!" said Skookum, scrambling to his feet.
"What is it?" asked Quin again. "Kahta mamook yukwa? What do you do here?"
"Pete him kill Jenny," screamed Annawillee. Quin staggered back.
"He, he——"
He pointed at the drunken man.
"Not mimaloose, him dlunk," said Annawillee, "Jenny with Chinaman."
Skookum led Quin, the big Tyee, to Wong's shack.
"If she's dead——" said Quin, looking towards Pete. He opened Wong's door.
The room was eight feet by twelve by ten: it reeked of fierce tobacco and the acrid fumes of "dope." Some of them "hit the pipe," smoked opium. The smell was China; Quin, who had been there, knew it. With the odours of Canton were the odours of bad oil. Three lamps ate up the air. Quin saw a row of whitish masks about the table: some excited, some stupid, one or two villainous. At the head of the table was the quiet majestic head of the old philosopher Wong. He had a great domed skull and a skin of drawn parchment over wide bones. With a sponge he wiped blood from Jenny's face. Sam held a bowl of water. He looked anxious and strange. And Jenny's body, in white linen and crimson silk, fouled with sawdust and blood, lay there quietly.
"Is she dead?" asked Quin.
The philosopher, whose shiny skin declared his love of opium, said she was not dead.
"My tinkee she all light bymby," said Wong, "She belongy you, Tyee?"
"Turn the others out," said the Tyee, and at Wong's word they fled out of the door, and stood in the dark jabbering about Quin having taken Jenny.
Quin turned on Sam.
"Why did you leave the house, Sam? My tell you stop, you damn thief!"
Sam, now as pale as Jenny, threw out his hands in urgent deprecation of Quin's anger.
"My no go out," he lied, "my stay allo tim' with Missus, maskee she go out and my no findee. I lun down here, Mista Quin, lun queek, findee damn Pete hurtee Missus. T'at tlue. My tellee Missus no cly: maskee she lead Bible and cly. My no can do."
He wrung his hands. Perhaps what he said was true. Quin felt Jenny's pulse and found it at last. He saw she breathed.
"I'll have her home," he said.
They took the door off its hinges, and Sam with the others carried her up to the house. Wong went into town to ask the doctor to come to Quin's at once "chop-chop," and Dr. Jupp came. He found Jenny on the bed moaning a little.
"What's this, Quin?" asked Jupp, who knew Quin well enough.
Quin answered sullenly and told the truth.
"Tut," said Jupp, "some day you'll get knifed, Quin; why can't you get married and leave the klootchmen alone?"
He was a white-bearded old boy, who knew how ignorant he was of medicine. But he knew men. He went over Jenny carefully.
"Two ribs broken," he said, "and the small bone of the left arm. And a little concussion of the brain. I think she'll do, Quin."
"Thank you," said Quin.
Between them they made her comfortable after Jupp had sent for splints and bandages.
"She's very pretty," said Jupp, For Pete hadn't kicked her face. "She's very pretty."
"She's as good as gold, by God!" said Quin.
"Humph," said Jupp. "I'll come in to-morrow morning early. Shall I send you a nurse?"
"I'll sit up with her," said Quin. "You'd only send some cursed white woman with notions."
"Maybe," said Jupp, "they frequently have 'em incurably."
Quin's face was white and hard. He stood up and looked across the bed.
"I tell you this little girl is as good as any white woman in town, Jupp."
Jupp took snuff habitually; he took some now.
"Who the devil said she wasn't?" he asked drily. He left the room.
It was early morning before Jenny became conscious, and even then Quin had great trouble with her. For she was very sick. There was no end to his patience. Nor was there any to Sam's. The boy sat outside on the mat all night.
"My askee Missus no tellee Boss my go playee Fan-tan," he said nervously.
At bright dawn Jenny found Quin half-dozing with his head on the quilt under her hand. She touched his hair tenderly, and he woke up.
"Tchorch," she said feebly, with a heavenly smile, "Tchorch!"
"Yes, little girl," said George.
"I tink I no go away again, Tchorch. I no want to be good, I want to stay with you. What you tink, Tchorch?"
The tears ran down George's face. That's what he thought.
"I'll kick that damn Pete's head in," said George to himself.
"I no want to be good. I jus' want Tchorch," said Jenny.
She closed her eyes and slept.