Part 17

Elizabeth placed the lamp upon a stand close at hand.

"Papa," she said, "don't you know me? I'm Elizabeth."

He caught at the name.

"You lie!" he cried shrilly. "Elizabeth's dead! I won't have her talked about! She's dead, I say! Hush-sh! Hush-sh! Don't wake her up. Sleep's a good thing--a good thing."

On the table where she had placed the lamp was a tiny bottle marked "chloral." There was also a glass of water upset upon the table. Stanwood's clothing and other belongings lay scattered upon the floor. She had never before seen his room disordered. Well! he was ill, and here she was to take care of him.

He was not talking so fast now, but what he said was even more incoherent. The light and the presence of another person in the room seemed to confuse and trouble him. She took his hand and felt the pulse. The hand was hot, and grasped hers convulsively. She put his coat over his shoulders, and then she sat with her arm about him, and gradually he stopped talking, and turned his face to hers with a questioning look.

"What can I do for you, papa? Tell me if there is anything I can do for you."

"Do for me?" he repeated.

"Yes, dear. Is there nothing I can do, nothing I can get for you?"

"Get for me?"

He drew off from her a little, and a crafty look, utterly foreign to the man's nature, came into the tense face.

"I don't suppose you've got a drop of whisky!" he said insinuatingly.

The sound of the word upon his own lips seemed to bring the excitement back on him. "Whisky! Yes, that's it! I don't care who knows it! Whisky! Whisky!" He fairly hissed the words.

For the first time since she came into the room Elizabeth was frightened.

"I think you ought to have a doctor," she said.

She felt him lean against her again, and she gently lowered him to the pillow. His head sank back, and he lay there with white lips and closed lids. She knelt beside him, watching his every breath. After a few minutes he opened his eyes. They were dull, but no longer wild.

"Ought you not to have a doctor, papa dear?" she asked.

Intelligence came struggling back into his face.

"No, my dear," he said, gathering himself for a strong effort. "I have had attacks like this before."

"And a stimulant is all you need?"

"All I need," he muttered. His eyes closed, and his breath came even and deep.

Elizabeth knelt there, thankful that he slept. How white his lips were! How spent he looked! He had asked for whisky. Perhaps even in his delirium he knew what he wanted; perhaps a stimulant was all he needed. Of course it was! How stupid not to have understood!

She hurried to her room and got a small brandy-flask that had been given her for the journey. She had emptied it for a sick man on the train.

She went back to her father. He was sleeping heavily. She glanced at his watch lying upon the table beside the chloral bottle. One o'clock! She wondered whether the "store" would be open. She should hate to go to a saloon. But then, that was no matter. If her father needed a stimulant he must have it. She dressed herself quickly, and put her purse and the brandy-flask into her pocket. Then she hurried to the shed, where she saddled the bronco. Her father had once told her that she would have made a first-rate cowboy. Well, now was her chance to prove it.

The collies, who had taken refuge from the wind on the south side of the shed, came trotting in at the open door, and assembled, a curious little shadowy group, about her. But they soon dropped off to sleep, and when she led the bronco out and closed the door upon them, a feeble wag of a tail or two was all the evidence of interest they gave.

She twisted the bridle round a post and slipped into the house for one more look at her patient. He was sleeping profoundly. She placed the lamp upon the floor in a corner, so that the bed was in shadow. Then she came back to the bedside and watched the sleeper again for a moment. She touched his forehead and found it damp and cool. The fever was past. Perhaps he was right; there was no need of a doctor--it was nothing serious. Perhaps the stuff in that little bottle had done something queer to him. A stimulant was all he needed. But he needed that, for his face was pitifully pallid and drawn.

A moment later the bronco was bearing her swiftly through the night, his hoof-falls echoing in a dull rhythm. The wind still came in gusts, blowing straight into her face, but it was warm and pleasant. When she had passed through the gate of the ranch the road went between wire fences, straight north to Cameron City. Now and then a group of horses, roused, perhaps, by her approach, stood with their heads over the fence watching her pass, while the wind stretched their manes and tails out straight to one side. She wished she could stop and make friends with them, but there was no time for that. Her father might wake up and call for her. So on they sped, she and the bronco, waking the cattle on either side of the road, startling more than one prowling coyote, invisible to them, causing more than one prairie-dog, snug in his hole, to fancy it must be morning. And the great night, encompassing the world, gleaming in the heavens, brooding upon the earth, made itself known to her for the first time. Elizabeth never forgot that ride through the beautiful brooding night. Nature seemed larger and deeper and grander to her ever after.

As they came among the houses of the town she reined in the bronco and went quietly, lest she should wake the people. There was a light burning in the room over the store, and the window was open. A woman answered her summons. It was the wife of the storekeeper. Her husband was absent, she said, and she was up with a sick baby. She readily filled the little flask, and was sympathetic and eager to help. Shouldn't she send somebody over to the ranch? There wasn't any doctor in Cameron City, but Cy Willows knew a heap about physic.