"Dick," she said steadily, "go and harness Murphy. We must take father to the Collinsons."
Dick stumbled off blindly to do her bidding. Murphy was the one lean ox who had done all their carting and ploughing; and before long the boy came back again, driving the slow brute in the clumsy, creaking ox-cart. Between them they managed to draw their father up two inclined boards until his inert body rested safely in the cart; and then fleet-footed Stephanie ran back to the cabin for all the coverings and pillows in their poor store. Before half-an-hour had passed, the clumsy conveyance was creaking down the rough old Indian trail which led by many windings to the Collinson homestead, bearing the unconscious Captain, while Dick and Stephanie walked beside, urging Murphy to his best pace. Their hearts were sick with dread; motherless they had been for two years—were they now to be fatherless also?
It had all been so terribly sudden they had scarcely time to think, but it was the best thing they could do. At the Collinson homestead their father would be certain to receive the tenderest care, and perhaps medical attendance if things turned out fortunately. But would they ever get him alive over those long, jolting miles? The same fear was in the eyes of each as they looked at one another.
They were never to reach their journey's end. Before long the Captain began slowly to regain consciousness, and his first question was a faintly-uttered "What's this? Where are you taking me?"
They told him, with white, anxious faces bending over the rough sides of the cart, while Murphy tried to reach a tempting bit of green grass under the trees. But the injured man shook his head. "It is no use, my dears," he said feebly, "another two miles would kill me at once. And I must die where she died, for I cannot recover. Stephanie"—it was curious how he turned from the elder child to his younger—"Stephanie, take me back! Promise to take me back!"
Who could have withstood the pitiful appeal in his eyes? With aching hearts they promised, and once more he relapsed into unconsciousness, muttering fragments of old orders which he had given as captain of the great merchantman Theseus, in the long ago days. They looked at each other in miserable helplessness.
Dick broke the wretched silence. "Stephanie," he said, "you must take him home again, and I must go on to the Collinsons—for if he will not be taken to help, help must be brought to him. I shall be able to take two or three short cuts, and they will ride or drive back with me, so it won't be so very long. But oh, my dear, I do hate to leave you!"
Stephanie shook her head. "We are thinking of him now," she said quietly, and without another word turned Murphy round. With a last hurried look, Dick plunged rapidly into the bushes at the side of the trail, and she could hear the rustling of his footsteps growing fainter in the distance. Then began the weary journey home again.
They had only travelled a short distance from the little clearing, but to Stephanie it seemed hours before the log-cabin and the field of corn came into view. And having reached home, she had to face a new difficulty. She could not, unaided, lift her father from the cart. So she backed it into a sheltered place among the trees, and brought the rough chairs and barrels from the log-cabin to support the shafts. Then she unharnessed Murphy, and led him to his shed, moving as if she were in some terrible dream.
Returning to the cabin, which already looked deserted and strange, she ransacked every corner until she found a little of some coarse, crude spirit in an old bottle. Mixing it with water, she strove to force some into her father's mouth, but he did not seem able to swallow. So she began her long helpless vigil beside the cart, knowing that there was nothing she could do. If only Dick were there! The shadows grew long and longer, and still the Captain lay motionless in the cart beneath the great trees; and still Stephanie kept her patient watch beside him. Only once did her father speak in all those terrible hours. She had been bending over him adjusting his coverings, when she found him looking up at her with a brighter, more gentle look than she had seen upon his face for years. "I thought you were your mother, little girl," he said faintly, "your hands move as hers did."