“That’s right. Don’t wait. Keep up your pecker, Wally, my boy.” The big man smiled at Wally affectionately. “We’ll have you all right soon, my dear lad.”
“I guess it’ll take a tough snake to kill me,” Wally answered. “I’m all serene, sir.” The buggy whirled away again as Mr. Linton wheeled his horse and went off at a hard gallop.
“Jove, old Monarch can travel!” said Wally, approvingly. A jolt shook his swollen hand, and his lips tightened again.
Mrs. Anderson could give but a vague idea of her husband’s movements, nor was there any one in the township able to do more to help the patient. Murty dashed off on a fresh horse in search of the doctor; and the four from Billabong sat in the shade of a big oak tree and tried to talk—three watching covertly all the time for any new symptoms on Wally’s part. After a while his eyes grew heavy, and Norah brought a flask of coffee, strong and black, and dosed him at short intervals. The boy made a brave fight to help them.
“This won’t do,” he said, after a while. “I’ll be asleep in five minutes if I stay here. Get a pack of cards and we’ll play cribbage.”
They played on a rug in the shade—Jim and Jean against Norah and Wally, the latter playing with one hand and occasionally cracking a laborious joke, almost in the midst of which his head would nod to one side. He always recovered himself with a jerk, and, despite his drowsiness, he played with a keen quickness that shamed the others, who made the most egregious mistakes with a total lack of concern as to their score. It was long before Norah could ever again bear the sight of a cribbage board.
Jim flung down his cards at last, his voice shaking.
“Well, I can’t stand this,” he said. “Hang that man! Will he ever come? Let’s walk up and down, Wal., old man.”
They went up and down, up and down, along the garden path, in the hot air, heavy with the scent of the doctor’s flowers—all the time fighting the fatal drowsiness that threatened to overcome the boy they loved. Mrs. Anderson kept the supply of coffee ready, and Wally took it obediently whenever it was brought to him.
“If this blessed hand would only let me do anything, I’d be all right,” he said sleepily. “I’d give something to be able to use an axe! Norah, asthore, will you stick hatpins into me if I get any more stupid? I’m not going to sleep, if I have to stick them into myself!”