"Well, sir," said Bob, "they thinks 'tis mortification, sir, an' not knowin' no better——"
"Thank you," said the Doctor. He turned to Mild Jim Cull. "Skipper James," said he, "have Timmie take care of the dogs. I'll cross Ships' Run and lance that finger."
Dusk fell on Amen Island. No doctor had happened across the Run. No saving help—no help of any sort, except the help of Sandy Lands and Black Walt Anderson, to hold the rebellious subject—had come.
At Candlestick Cove Doctor Luke had been delayed. The great news of his fortunate passing had spread inland overnight to the tilts of Rattle River. Before the Doctor could get under way for Amen Island, an old dame of Serpent Bend, who had come helter-skelter through the timber, whipping her team, frantic to be in time to command relief before the Doctor's departure, drove up alone, with four frowsy dogs, and desired the extraction of a tooth; but so fearful and coy was she—notwithstanding that she had suffered the tortures of the damned, as she put it, for three months, having missed the Doctor on his northern course—that the Doctor was kept waiting on her humour an hour or more before she would yield to his scoldings and blandishments.
And no sooner had the old dame of Serpent Bend been rejoiced to receive her recalcitrant tooth in a detached relationship than a lad of Trapper's Lake trudged in to expose a difficulty that turned out to be neither more nor less than a pitiable effect of the lack of nourishment; and when an arrangement had been accomplished to feed the lad well and strong again, a woman of Silver Fox was driven in—a matter that occupied Doctor Luke until the day was near spent and the crossing of Ships' Run was a hazard to be rather gravely debated.
"You'll put it off, sir?" Skipper James advised.
The Doctor surveyed the ice of Ships' Run and the sky beyond Amen Island.
"I wish I might," said he, frankly.
"I would, sir."