Both of them hurried away to their work.
That same evening, hours after the day-staff had ceased their labours, Alice was watching beside Long Shorty, and, notwithstanding its many disagreeable passages, listened to his wild flow of language. He was ever living over again his struggles with the forces of Nature, with his fellows, and his own tempestuous passions!
"The blue water, the blue water, keep her to the blue!"—her patient was again living a dash through a rapid in a canoe.—"White water means rocks and death—death—death, I say! To the right!"—and he would shout. In those anxious weary hours the girl grew to realize something of the wild, rough life of the frontiersmen.
On the morning of the Friday when the ultimatum was to be sent to Smoothbore, Peel returned to the hospital from the town. He was in a condition of excitement, as was every one else in Dawson.
"Alice, that typhoid fellow was talking about Parson Jack?"
"He was," replied Alice, opening her eyes with expectancy. "Why do you say that?"
"Because that's the chap who is trying to overthrow the Government. Our patient may be one of the conspirators."
"Possibly," said Alice, and hastened away. She knew "Parson Jack" was Berwick. Intuition told her so. She was absolutely certain of the fact.
The news that a plot was brewing had, of course, penetrated the walls of the hospital. Now that Alice knew John Berwick was concerned in it her interest quickened and her anxieties awoke.