“We have come direct from the Frazer trading-post, Colonel,” he hastened to explain; “it was taken by trickery last night, the old factor seriously wounded, and the post robbed of everything of value, including precious pelts, food, ammunition, and all else.”
Colonel Ascot looked greatly annoyed.
“Then my fears were justified,” he went on to say, with a grimace, and a shrug of his shoulders; “never has that man’s equal been known in all the years I’ve been up against clever crooks. It was a false appeal for help, intended to employ most of my men, and give these desperate looters plenty of time to get away with their plunder. Under the unfortunate circumstances what can I do to further your plans, sir? Anything in my power you may command—I have but three of my force at the post, being short-handed just at present, as several are on leave of absence for special reasons.”
“If you could spare me Sergeant Lowden, sir, whom my comrade has recommended highly as one with a thorough knowledge of the whole country for fifty miles around, and allow me to carry the doctor back to Frazer’s to take charge of poor Old Jimmy, I could, I believe, make good progress; especially if you sent the balance of your detachment after us as an emergency force, in case we find the sledding a bit too rough.”
Colonel Ascot looked relieved, as though a heavy load had been taken from his chest.
“Only too gladly will I accede to that request,” he told his guest. “I am expecting Dr. Hamilton at any moment now, when you can meet him, and ask him to ride back with you to the trading post. He is a gentleman, and a very gifted surgeon—in the year and more that he’s been in this neighborhood I have known him to perform almost unbelievable operations with the most remarkable success. There is some mystery about the man, which is none of our business—I am simply telling you in order that you may not unintentially permit yourself—or Perk, whose failings along the line of curiosity I know full well—to display any sign of butting in. In these lonely regions, my dear sir, just as in the gold fields, a man’s past is his business only, and other people are content that it should remain a dead secret; but you can rest assured he is straight goods, and moreover a polished gentleman, as well as a wonderful physician.”
“I can readily understand what you mean, Colonel,” Jack warmly assured him, “and once I have warned Perk neither of us ever display the slightest curiosity about his hidden past—as you say, it concerns him alone; we’ll just take him for what he is, and be glad to know him.”
They talked further, as the Colonel glanced at his papers and laid them in a pigeonhole of his desk; and Jack learned a number of important things connected with the man whom he planned to take back with him to the States, having the necessary documents to allow of this being done via the airship route.
Then the officer asked him to step outside, for he believed he had heard the voice of Dr. Hamilton, who it appeared, was coming once a day to treat a badly lacerated leg of one of the privates, who had been thrown from his horse amidst a cache of unusually jagged rocks, with ill results.
Jack liked the doctor from the start, although he could plainly see that something like grief—hardly remorse—must have been eating at the other’s heart for many a moon, his manner was so suppressed, so sad.