A DERELICT
Surgeon-Major Peel was strongly imbued with the instincts of humanity, but, like many professional men, his business acumen was small. While one or two of his patients were prosperous claim-owners who could afford to pay an ounce and a half of gold-dust per day, there were many who passed into his care who could not pay, and these, the poorly nourished and mentally depressed, were the more susceptible to attacks by the deadly typhoid-bacillus.
Not that the patients were dishonest—they simply had not the money. What could be done under the circumstances? The delirious victim who was bundled up to the doors of St. George's could not be turned away! Obviously it was the duty of the Government, reaping enormous revenues from the whisky traffic and the gold royalty, to pay.
One day—it was the Tuesday before the meeting on the Dome—a big hulk of a man joined the patients of the St. George's Private Hospital. His temperature was 104½, and he was delirious. A neighbour had brought him; his name was unknown, his residence was given as the North End. It was Long Shorty!
"Poor fellow," remarked the Surgeon-Major sympathetically, when he had taken his pulse, had slipped the thermometer under his arm, and was watching the gasping figure.
"Typhoid attacks even the strongest. What a handsome animal he would be if his face showed less dissipation!"
"He does not look likely to prove a profitable guest," Alice commented. She was the housekeeper of the establishment and found the domestic problems more difficult than her father imagined.
"Who knows, who knows! He may have property which will turn out a Bonanza; think of Gold Hill—ten English pounds to each shovelful of dirt dug from the bed-rock, and the claim-owners round about were coming to the two Swedes who owned the claim to ask them to work for wages!"
"Yes, father," said Alice, "but there's another side to these stories. Think of the thousands in and around Dawson living on one meal a day; it is always the same in every mining excitement. It is either too much wealth, or nothing at all!"
She was evidently thinking of John, remembering his talk of experiences. Her father, who, though blind to many of the aspects of life, was a keen observer of his daughter, guessed at the truth.
"It is strange we can learn nothing of John," he said.
"He must be away on the creeks," she answered wistfully. "I have sent several letters to him through the post; and it can't be that they all would go astray."
The girl sighed, and her father busied himself anew with the work of the hospital.
"Fred is to give this man a cold bath and put him in ward 'C.' I really must see the Commissioner—Hi-u Bill, they call him—and come to some understanding as to indigent patients."
For some reason, not apparent on the surface, Long Shorty made a great impression upon Alice. She interested herself in his case, and often sat by his bed. His fever remained high and persistent; he was still delirious. Wild things he said. What most interested Alice was his continuous references to "Parson Jack."
"Parson Jack, I knew he was no tenderfoot; a fellow what would mush forty-five miles for a sick pal—Parson Jack—and then want to mush back again. Parson Jack, Parson Jack—he gave Poo-Bah hell—hell on toast!—Parson Jack!" And the great muscles would stand out upon his neck and arms as he waved his clenched fists in the air.
"Parson Jack" might mean any one, thought Alice.
The fever had run about a week of its course when Long Shorty entered the hospital, so that the disease had another two weeks to run before the crisis would be reached. There was nothing to do but wait patiently for the return of consciousness. In the meantime, her imagination pictured much. She tried, by suggestion, to shape the course of his ravings, but found they were as fleeting and volatile as the changing winds of the heavens.
The special services rendered by Alice to Long Shorty did not escape her father's notice. He remarked to her one day,
"Alice, no one could accuse you of worldliness; you certainly are giving the delirious patient in ward 'C' a full measure of attention!"
"Do you know, father," she then said frankly, "in some ways he reminds me of John. I don't know how it is; I suppose they have something in common, something may link them together. He is perpetually calling on Parson Jack."
"Ha!" snorted her father. "Our patient is far from being of the type of Berwick!"
Both of them hurried away to their work.
That same evening, hours after the day-staff had ceased their labours, Alice was watching beside Long Shorty, and, notwithstanding its many disagreeable passages, listened to his wild flow of language. He was ever living over again his struggles with the forces of Nature, with his fellows, and his own tempestuous passions!
"The blue water, the blue water, keep her to the blue!"—her patient was again living a dash through a rapid in a canoe.—"White water means rocks and death—death—death, I say! To the right!"—and he would shout. In those anxious weary hours the girl grew to realize something of the wild, rough life of the frontiersmen.
On the morning of the Friday when the ultimatum was to be sent to Smoothbore, Peel returned to the hospital from the town. He was in a condition of excitement, as was every one else in Dawson.
"Alice, that typhoid fellow was talking about Parson Jack?"
"He was," replied Alice, opening her eyes with expectancy. "Why do you say that?"
"Because that's the chap who is trying to overthrow the Government. Our patient may be one of the conspirators."
"Possibly," said Alice, and hastened away. She knew "Parson Jack" was Berwick. Intuition told her so. She was absolutely certain of the fact.
The news that a plot was brewing had, of course, penetrated the walls of the hospital. Now that Alice knew John Berwick was concerned in it her interest quickened and her anxieties awoke.