The surgeon shook his head. It was a movement of sympathy for the man, as a man. Then he proceeded to consider him as a machine, which it was a surgeon’s business to repair. Ruby and I stood by anxiously, while the skilled craftsman inspected. Was this insensible, but still breathing creature, only panting away the last puffs of his motive power? or was it capable mechanism still?
“Critical case,” said Dr. Pathie, at last. He had great, umbrageous eyebrows, and a gentle, peremptory manner, as of one who had done much merciful cruelty in his day. “Ugly wound. Never saw a worse furrow. Conical ball. He must have been almost at the muzzle of the pistol. He ought not to have stirred for a month. How he has borne such a journey with that arm, I cannot conceive. Strong character, eh? Passionate young fellow? Life means something to him. Well, Nature nominates such men to get into scrapes for other people; she gets them wounded, and drains them of their blood. Lying on their backs is good for them, and so is feeling weak. They take in more emotion than they can assimilate while they are wide awake. They would go frenzied with overcrowded brain, if they were not shut up into themselves sometimes, by sickness or sorrow. There’s not much to do for him. A very neat hand has been at his bandages. Now, if he is a man with a distinct and controlling purpose in his life,—if he has words to say, or deeds, or duties to do, and knows it,—he will hold by his life; if not, not. Keep him quiet. And do not let him see, or hear, or feel the presence of that beautiful young woman. She is not his sister, and she will have too much trouble herself to be a tranquil nurse for him here.”
I left him with his patient, and went out to care for our horses. Ruby, model host, had saved me all trouble.
“I have given Miss Clitheroe my sole guest-chamber,” he said. “She has a lady’s-maid in the brawny person of an Irish corporaless. What a transcendent being she is! I don’t wonder Brent loves her, as I divined he did from what Jake Shamberlain—shrewd fellow Jake—said when he consigned the father to me.”
“I must have a talk with the old gentleman. O, there he is with Armstrong.”
Armstrong was handing him the money-belt. His eyes gleamed as he clutched it.
“Walk off with me a step,” said Ruby, “before you speak to him.”
We strolled off through the Sioux encampment. The warriors, tall fellows with lithe forms, togaed in white blankets, were smoking in a circle. Only the great chiefs were in toggery of old uniforms, blossoming into brass buttons wherever a button could bourgeon. And only the great chiefs resembled frowzy scarecrows. The women, melancholy, as the abused women of barbarians always are, were slouching about at slave work. All greeted Ruby as a friend, with sonorous grunts.
Society, even of Sioux, dwelling under buffalo hide foolscaps, was humane after our journey. The barracks of Laramie, lonely outpost on a bleak plain, were fairly beautiful in their homelike homeliness. Man without a roof is mere chaos.
“Trouble in store, I fear,” said Captain Ruby, “for Mr. Clitheroe and all who care for him.”