charmian was gazing across the fire at shonto, half bewildered at his blunt statement. she had known that andy was concerned in the disaster that had befallen the party, for long since she had connected the little tablets which he took daily with the loss of the medicine case.
“has andy told you anything of his physical troubles?” shonto questioned.
“a little,” she replied. “when we were at jorny springs with leach and morley. he told me about the period in his boyhood that he can’t remember. he told me that it was necessary for him to take his tablets daily. some kind of heart trouble, isn’t it?”
the doctor nodded gravely. “andy doesn’t hesitate to tell about it,” he said. “i imagined that you knew. well—”
“pardon me just a moment,” she interrupted. “you haven’t said outright that it is heart trouble, doctor.” “have you any reason to think otherwise?
“yes—now. it seems to me that you are still reticent—virtually evasive. you aren’t a practised dissimulator, doctor. why do you try it?”
“i’ll be frank with you,” he said, “if you’ll be as frank with me. will you?”
“of course.”
[181]“i shall have to ask for your display of frankness first,” he went on. “you must answer this question before i shall feel at liberty to tell you why i have been close-mouthed: in the big cañon that night before you and i left, did andy ask you to marry him?”
her face went red, but she shook her head.
“i believe you,” he said. “but andy would be too excited to think of asking you to marry him, perhaps. he—both of you—would take marriage for granted. so i must ask another question: didn’t he tell you that he loves you, and didn’t you surrender yourself to him?”
her long lashes covered her dark eyes, and for a space she declined to answer. then she lifted her head and looked him straight in the face.
“i suppose,” she said slowly, “that, according to the standardized procedure, i ought to say, ‘what right have you to ask me that?’ but you have the right—i suppose. anyway, i consider it a fair question, and i’ll answer it as fairly. he did, and i did. but—but how did you know, doctor?”
the doctor’s laugh was brief and bitter. “when you two returned to camp,” he informed her, “the announcement couldn’t have been plainer if you had pinned placards on your breasts. i knew what had happened. so did mary temple.”
“well?”—almost defiantly.
“well, i suppose there’s nothing to be said. theoretically i should back gracefully away, murmuring my congratulations. but i’ll not do that. i don’t give up so easily, charmian. i am convinced that you and[182] i are mated, and that you and andy are not. i think that it would be a great misfortune for both of us if we don’t become man and wife. but i’ll play the game fair and square—with both you and andy. and this desire to play square is what has kept my mouth closed on so many occasions. i won’t tell you why i think it unwise for you to marry andy jerome. on the contrary, i’ll go out and leave you two here together and make every effort to get back with more medicine before you can learn for yourself that i am the man you should have for a husband instead of him. it’s hard, charmian—hard to play square, when i hold my rival’s future in the hollow of my hand. but the ethics of my profession demand that i do all in my power to save him, and my conscience demands the same.
“so to-morrow i must leave you, hoping that i can get back in time. there is no other way. i’ll make it back to mary and andy, and send andy on here. with the aid of a compass and the directions that i can give him he will never miss the pass into the valley. you must hoist a garment or a blanket on a pole, which he will be able to see from the top of the wall and all the way down. or a smudge of damp leaves will send up a stream of smoke to direct him to you.
“andy is a master mountaineer and woodsman. it is born in him; he inherited it from his alps-climbing ancestors. he will be able to supply you with food while you are waiting for me to return. but listen carefully: as soon as he comes, have him show you how to make rabbit snares and pitfalls and deadfalls,[183] so that you will be able to get game if he becomes unable to do it for you. you two get to work at once gathering all the nuts and acorns you can—and you’d better be working at it before he comes. stow them away. have andy show you how to pulverize the acorns and make indian bread of the flour. gather huckleberries—all you can—i saw a patch of them up the river from where we crossed to-day. the berries will be ripe now. then you’ll find nuts in the cones of the piñon pines. andy has a little fishing tackle. there should be mountain trout in the river. if indians could subsist in this valley without drawing upon civilization for supplies, trust andy to do it. but the important point is that you must make him teach you all that he knows about foraging in the wilderness before he—before he becomes unable to help you. for that may happen.”
“you are not making yourself clear, doctor,” charmian told him. “why is all this necessary? why can’t we all go out together? in other words, if andy can get here to me why can’t he make it out to shirttail henry’s or mosquito? and why can’t mary temple come here with andy, if she is able to go with you over the mountains?”
“mary deceived you, with my knowledge,” confessed shonto. “her ankle isn’t sprained. she has a broken rib. she could never crawl through that chaparral. it would break her in two, almost. but she can walk in an erect position, after a fashion, with me to help her. anyway, there’s nothing else to be done; we’ll have to try it. and andy—”
[184]“why did mary temple tell me she had a sprained ankle when she had broken her rib?” demanded charmian.
“she wanted to force you and me into the wilderness together,” explained shonto, without a sign of contrition. “that’s what i believe now. i know she doesn’t approve of andy jerome as a husband for you. and she has hinted that she wants you to marry me. that’s frank enough, isn’t it? but she told me that she was afraid of putting a stop to your expedition if she confessed to a broken rib. she knew that she could walk with her rib broken—see?—and thought that you would insist on taking her back and spoiling the fun. but if she pleaded a sprained ankle, you would imagine that she couldn’t walk one way or the other, and it would be just as well to leave her there until she could walk again, while you went on with your hunt for the valley. it worked out to her satisfaction, as you see.”
“and now you think she deliberately planned to get you and me to continue the trip together?”
“i’m afraid so,” smiled shonto, “though i give my word it didn’t occur to me at the time. i never gave a thought to the old trick of making one person think he has had a square deal in drawing straws by the use of two whole matches. you see, there was no short match for andy to draw. both matches were whole. the one who drew the long straw was elected to stay in the cañon. when andy saw that he had drawn an entire match, he didn’t think to ask to see the other[185] one, but considered himself defeated then and there.”
“i think it was abominable of mary temple!” the girl said sharply.
“perhaps it was so,” admitted shonto. “nevertheless, the fact remains that she was, and always is, working for what she thinks your best interests. and it struck me as almost noble of her to feign a sprained ankle in order to keep you on the quest. sending me out with you occurred to her later, i think. at the time she played only to keep your expedition moving—and it called for a certain amount of sacrifice for a crippled, middle-aged woman to remain in that deep cañon all alone.”
charmian made no further comment on mary’s well-meant perfidy. she thought deeply for a long time, and when she spoke she reverted to a question that still remained unanswered:
“why can’t andy go out with the rest of us if he is able to get to the valley of arcana?”
“it will require a great deal more time for us to get out with the crippled mary than it will for andy to find you here,” shonto explained. “and he might— it might happen that he would succumb on the way. andy jerome, charmian, is an experiment. i know that he can hold out for three or four days, but how much longer i don’t know, because i’ve never experimented with him to the extent of shutting off his medicine to find out. andy is my friend—his family have been my friends for many years. so i really don’t[186] know what would happen if we were many days on the back trail or if a blizzard came on and left us storm-bound in the mountains. but here in the valley of arcana, where everything is smiling and there will be an abundance of food for some time to come, he will be safe with you to care for him. i simply can’t risk taking him out.”
“it’s the loss of his supply of tablets, of course,” murmured the widow. “why didn’t you leave him a sufficient supply?”
“he has as much as he ever carries when i am with him,” said the doctor. “i usually carry the main stock when we are out in the wilderness together. i have always thought it safer to keep the greater part of it myself. i don’t go into so many difficult places as andy does. i don’t take the risks that he does. then if something happened to his supply, i’d still have enough for him. perhaps it was foolish for me to bring along any at all on the trip from the cañon, but i have become so accustomed to keeping it in my medicine case that i followed the usual procedure. i knew that andy would not be content to stay with mary all the time. he’ll be scouring the hills and cañons in search of things to interest him. and he always takes his tablets. if he had all of them, he might lose them, as i did. you see, that’s the way i reasoned. i’m andy’s guardian—a poor one, i confess now. and the difficulty is that i’m never free to talk over his malady with him or others. to be a little more frank still, it is a secret, even to andy himself. this time i reasoned wrong—if i reasoned at all—and simply didn’t do as[187] i did from force of habit. and andy must have more medicine just as soon as i can get it to him, for i don’t know how long he’ll last without it when his present supply is gone.
“so there’s the nut-shell truth of the situation. mary can’t come here; andy doesn’t dare to try to make it out. you must stay here in the valley and take care of andy. i must get mary out and hurry to a point where i can send a wire for more tablets. there’s no other alternative. i’ve thought it all out; looked at the matter from every angle.”
“but—but what shall i do?” she puzzled. “what can i do to help andy? what am i to expect?”
“you can do nothing,” replied the doctor. “i mean, i can’t give you any instructions. neither can andy. when—if anything happens, you will soon know what to do. i really can’t tell you any more, charmian. it wouldn’t be fair to him. for it may transpire that nothing at all will happen—and that’s what i’m hoping for. i must trust to fate, for i myself am ignorant of what will be the result if andy’s supply of tablets runs out before i can get back with more. neither do i know how soon the result will begin to show. and, as i said, in fairness to him i must not prepare you for anything simply because nothing at all may happen. for more reasons than one i don’t want you to marry andy jerome; but i’ll not be the one to tell you anything that might keep you from doing so.”
“why, doctor!” she cried. “you’ve done nothing but bewilder me. i can’t imagine what you’re talking about at all. it’s all riddles.”
[188]“i realize that,” he confessed, “but i consider myself helpless to make the thing clearer.”
“i don’t believe andy has heart trouble at all!” she said half angrily. “it’s something about the glands, i know. that accounts for your repeated refusals to tell me much about your work. isn’t that right?”
he nodded in agreement.
another period of staring into the flames on her part; then she cried passionately:
“oh, i don’t want to stay here alone and wait for andy! and i’m afraid—afraid of what may happen to him! but if i must stay, it’s cruel of you to leave me in ignorance of what to expect. and i can’t even talk it over with andy, it seems.”
“no, he knows less about it than you do,” shonto told her. “his parents and i have deceived him into thinking he has had heart trouble for years. and no one but his parents and i know the truth.”
“oh, that sounds terrible! you think i shouldn’t marry andy, and yet—”
“if andy remains all right,” he cut in quickly, “there is no positive reason why you shouldn’t marry him. i think, however, that he is not the man for you—and it’s fair enough for me to make that statement for the simple reason that i’m convinced i’m the man for you. i refuse to call to your mind any of andy’s faults. i have enough of my own. if he has any, you must find them out for yourself. but i’ll make you marry me instead of him because you will see that i’m the man to make your life complete, and that you’re the woman to make mine complete. you don’t love andy. i know[189] you don’t. you merely think you do. his magnificent young manhood has carried you off your feet, and you’ve not gone deeper into the matter. blind, physical love you have given him—but it will pass, charmian. and that’s enough—positively all. we’ll turn in and try to forget it all for to-night. and to-morrow early i’m off to send andy to you. i know you’ll care for him if—if he needs it. but if you believe in god, pray to him that he won’t! good night. my bed is over there by the big oak. call me if you need me for anything.”
