"Keep the slab-fire low, Mason, and have an eye to the boom."
"Ay, ay, sir."
"And, Mason, go back and put the signal out for the Success. Let me know when she's in sight."
"Ay, sir?" The old sailor's voice took a rising inflection; his unlovely features worked.
"Yes," said Forrest, "I'm going over to Seattle for the doctor. Little Si is worse."
He turned then, and went up to the gate. Louise heard him on the steps and met him at the door. He followed her silently in to that inner room where little Silas lay. His head was propped high with pillows and the place sounded with his labored breathing. Forrest stood for a moment watching him: the heaving of the breast under the loose white gown; the flutter of the half-closed eyelids; the milky whiteness of the forehead between the crayon-like brows and rings of tumbled hair. The child was very lovable; he had always shown his fondness for him in demonstrative, winning ways; and in the earlier stages of his illness he had called for him, begging to be carried or rocked, and Forrest had devoted late hours to him, sharing the mother's vigil; ready with the comfort and security of his strong arms. Now, while he looked at the unconscious face, this large-hearted, homeless, home-loving man seemed to feel a small hand on his heart-strings; the touch tightened when the baby coughed.
He turned to Louise. "I'm going over on the Success," he said. "The doctor will come back with me. Is there anything else I can do?"
"No, unless—you can find Philip."
"I am afraid he is still in Victoria. He would hardly have started to cross the Straits in this storm."
"No," she assented, "not in this storm." She lifted her hand to her head in a bewildered way, and turned to her baby with the mechanical effort of one long worn out with anxiety and watching. But when the child coughed again, a harder paroxysm, the motherhood leaped to her eyes. "Paul," she cried, "oh, Paul."