Smoke laughed skeptically, and knocked on a cabin door. “I suppose we'll find the same old thing,” he said. “Come on. We've got to get a line on the situation.”
“What do you want?” came a woman's sharp voice.
“We want to see you,” Smoke answered.
“Who are you?”
“Two doctors from Dawson,” Shorty blurted in, with a levity that brought a punch in the short ribs from Smoke's elbow.
“Don't want to see any doctors,” the woman said, in tones crisp and staccato with pain and irritation. “Go away. Good night. We don't believe in doctors.”
Smoke pulled the latch, shoved the door open, and entered, turning up the low-flamed kerosene-lamp so that he could see. In four bunks four women ceased from groaning and sighing to stare at the intruders. Two were young, thin-faced creatures, the third was an elderly and very stout woman, and the fourth, the one whom Smoke identified by her voice, was the thinnest, frailest specimen of the human race he had ever seen. As he quickly learned, she was Laura Sibley, the seeress and professional clairvoyant who had organized the expedition in Los Angeles and led it to this death-camp on the Nordbeska. The conversation that ensued was acrimonious. Laura Sibley did not believe in doctors. Also, to add to her purgatory, she had wellnigh ceased to believe in herself.
“Why didn't you send out for help?” Smoke asked, when she paused, breathless and exhausted, from her initial tirade. “There's a camp at Stewart River, and eighteen days' travel would fetch Dawson from here.”
“Why didn't Amos Wentworth go?” she demanded, with a wrath that bordered on hysteria.
“Don't know the gentleman,” Smoke countered. “What's he been doing?”