After that day when his adventuring soul strayed so near the portal which opens in but one direction, Boyle’s 348 recovery was rapid. Ten days later they loaded him into a wagon to take him to Comanche, thence to his father’s home by rail.
Young Boyle was full of the interest of life again, and his stock of audacity did not appear to be in the least diminished by his melancholy experience. He treated Dr. Slavens on the footing of an old friend, and if there was any shame in his heart at his past behavior toward Agnes, his colorless cheeks did not betray it.
With the exception of one flying visit to the capital city of the state, Governor Boyle had remained in camp faithfully since the day of the tragedy. But the slow days in those solitudes were galling to his busy mind once the safety of his boy’s life was assured. He became in a measure dictatorial and high-handed in his dealings with the doctor, and altogether patronizing.
Dr. Slavens considered his duty toward the patient at an end on the morning when they loaded him into the spring wagon to take him to Comanche. He told the Governor as much.
“He’ll be able to get up in a few days more,” said the doctor, “and inside of a month he’ll be riding his horse as if daylight never had been let through him.”
Governor Boyle took this announcement as the signal for him to produce his checkbook, which he did with considerable ostentation and flourish.
“How much did you expect to get out of this pile of rocks?” he asked the doctor, poising his fountain-pen over the page. 349
Dr. Slavens colored under the question, which came so sharply and indelicately, although he had rehearsed in his mind for that moment an uncounted number of times. He said nothing, fumbling as he was for a reply.
Jerry, lying back on his cot in the wagon, his head propped up, laughed shortly and answered for him.
“It was about twenty thousand, wasn’t it, Doctor?”