“Mighty bad!”
There was nothing for it. Doctor Grell’s night of pleasure had turned into one of life-saving and effort. He sent Slip over to drag away one of the young men from his game, and they rigged up two square trunks and a waterproof tarpaulin into an operating table. Then, as Slip was faint and sick, the two drove him back 97 to the gambling boat, while they, the graduate and the student, entered upon a gamble with a human life the stake.
Of that night’s efforts, fighting the “poison” with the few sharp weapons at their command—later reinforced by a hasty trip across the river to get others—the two need never tell. While they worked, they could hear at intervals the shout of a winner in the other boat. In moments of perfect quiet they heard the quick rustling of shuffled cards; they heard the rattling of dice in hard, muffled boxes; they heard, at intervals, the rattling of stove lids and smelt the soft-coal smoke which blew down on them from the kitchen chimney. Slip, not forgetful of them, brought over pots of black coffee and inquired after the patient. He found the two men paler on each visit, and stripped down more and more, till they were merely in their sweaty undershirts.
Toward morning the wind began to blow; it began to grow cold. The noises on the neighbouring boat grew fainter in the low rumble of a stormy wind out of the northwest, and the shanty-boat lifted at intervals on a wave that rolled out of the main current and across the eddy, making their operating room even more unstable.
Under their onslaught the death which was taking hold of Jest Prebol was checked, and the river rat whose life had been forfeited for his sly crimes became the object of a doctor’s sentiment and belief in his own training.
Long after midnight, when some few of the patrons of the games had already taken their departure, the doors opened oftener and oftener, letting the geometrical shaft of the yellow light flare out across the waters, and the grotesque shadows of those who departed stood 98 out against the night and waters as the men shivered in the wind and bent to feel their way into the boats.
After dawn Doctor Grell and his assistant, peaked and white, limp with their tremendous effort, and shivering with exhaustion of mind and body, walked out of the little shanty-boat, up to the big one, sat down with Buck and Slip to breakfast, and then took their own course across the ruffled and tumble-surfaced river.
“I ’low he’ll pull through,” Doctor Grell admitted, almost reluctantly. “He’s in bad shape, though, with the things the bullet carried into him, but we sure swabbed him out. How’d the game go to-night, boys?”
“Purty good.” Buck shook his head. “Tammer sure had luck his way—won a seventy-dollar pot onct.”
“I sure wanted to play,” Grell shook his head, “but in my profession you aren’t your own, and you cayn’t quit.”