"I 'low I got my reward," said he.
By that time Trapper George was doing well. Doctor Luke was watchfully at work. And Doctor Luke and Jinny Tulk, with the help of a spell of frosty weather and an abundance of healing fresh air, and assisted by the determined constitution of Trapper George Tulk himself, who had formed the fixed habit of surviving adverse conditions—Doctor Luke and Jinny Tulk worked an improvement, which passed presently into a state of convalescence and ultimately became a cure. It was no easy matter. Trapper George Tulk put one foot over the border—took a long look into the final shadows. But Doctor Luke was a good fighter. And he happened to win.
[CHAPTER XXXVII]
In Which Archie Armstrong Rejoins the "Rough and Tumble," With Billy Topsail for Shipmate, and They Seem Likely to be Left on the Floe, While Toby Farr, With the Gale Blowing Cold as Death and Dark Falling, Promises to Make a Song About the Ghosts of Dead Men, but is Entreated Not to Do So
Archie Armstrong and Billy Topsail did not wait with Doctor Luke at Poor Luck Barrens until the cure of Trapper George was accomplished. In view of Archie's wish to return to St. John's with Cap'n Saul aboard the Rough and Tumble, it was arranged that the boys should go back to Bread-and-Butter Tickle alone, and thence down the coast to Our Harbour, as best they could manage, carrying news of Doctor Luke's detention and the cause of it. They were sorry to say good-bye to Doctor Luke; and Doctor Luke was sorry to say good-bye to them. When the time came, Billy Topsail, who had come to love and respect the man for his warm qualities and the work that he did, sought for words to express his feeling and his thanks; but being a simple, robust fellow, not accustomed to the frank expression of feeling, not used to conventional forms, he could manage but poorly. Archie Armstrong would have been ready, fluent, and sincere in the same situation. But Billy Topsail could only stutter and flush and come to an awkward full stop.
What Billy wanted to say was clear enough in his own mind. He had been with Doctor Luke a good deal. They had been in tight places together. But it was not that. "Tight places" are only relative, after all; what is an adventure in one quarter of the world may be a mild incident in another. And that Billy Topsail and Doctor Luke had been in danger together was not particularly impressive: Billy Topsail was used to danger—to peril of that sort—and had grown to regard it as among the commonplaces of life.
That aspect of his experience with Doctor Luke to which Billy Topsail had responded was the habit of service—the instant, willing, efficient answer to the call of helpless need. Indeed, Doctor Luke appeared to Billy Topsail to be a very great man—the greatest man, in his personality and life, Billy Topsail had ever known, not excepting Sir Archibald Armstrong. And Billy Topsail had come definitely to the conclusion that what he wanted to do with his life was precisely what Doctor Luke was doing with his.
It was this that he wanted to tell Doctor Luke; and it was this that he failed to tell him.