Rising again she called the child.
“We must go and get a doctor at once,” she whispered, breathlessly. “I––I’m horribly afraid. Come outside with me.”
She caught the little girl’s arm in her impatience, and took her out.
“Your––your friend, Monsieur Hugo, is dreadfully ill, do you understand, child? I heard your mother say that one could telegraph from Carcajou for a doctor. We’ve got to do it! How long would it take me to get there?”
The girl was evidently scared, but she looked at Madge with some of the practical sense of one versed with the difficulties of life in the wilds.
“If you ’lone you never get dere. If Maigan work for you maybe three-four hour,” answered the child. “Heem go a 202 leetle way den turn back for de shack. No leave master.”
There came upon Madge a dreadful feeling of helplessness. The man looked terribly ill; she felt that he was probably going to die. This great wilderness suddenly grew as wicked in her eyes as that of the city. Nay, it was even worse. She remembered how ill she had become and how she had struggled to fight off the sickness, in a little lone room of a top floor. But as soon as people had come she had been bundled away to the hospital. A wagon had come, with a doctor in a white coat, and they had clattered off. The people in the hospital had seemed interested, indifferent, friendly, according to their several dispositions, but she had been taken care of, and fed, and washed, and some of the nurses had sweet faces, after all, and after a time she had recovered. All this had seemed rather terrible at the time, but what was it compared to this lying desperately ill in a freezing hut, too feeble to procure even the cup of water craved by a dry tongue and lips that were parched?
“I can surely walk that distance,” she cried, but the child shook her head again.
“You no good for walk far,” she asserted. “You jus’ fall down dead. Twelve mile and 203 snow deep some place. Moch cole as freeze you quick when tired.”
“Then what’s to be done?” asked Madge, entering the house again, followed by the child. “I think I ought to try to get to Carcajou.”