It had been the intense darkness of the night outside that had made the cabin window look bright, for the room into which Hugh came was lit only by a dying fire. Close to the hearth a big chair had been drawn and in this some one was sitting, some one who whispered and muttered to himself and stirred uneasily but did not look round. Nicholas ran to him and began licking the thin hand that hung limply over the arm of the chair. A lantern stood on the table, but it had evidently burned out. A canvas pack, half-emptied, with its blankets trailing out upon the floor, lay on a bench. It was quite evident that, besides the man in the chair, there was no one in the cabin.
Hugh went over to him, but still he did not look up. The boy touched the hand that Nicholas was licking and found it burning with fever. The man was very thin; he had on the rough clothes that every one wears in the woods, but he was fair-skinned and as unlike Half-Breed Jake and his companions as it was possible to be. It needed no very long reflection to make it clear to Hugh that this was John Edmonds.
Although it was quite true that Hugh did not know very much of the woodcraft and that, at milking Hulda, he had come very near to being a flat failure, there were still some crises to which he was equal, for he was not a country doctor’s son for nothing. He had helped his father more than once in emergencies very like this one, so that he was not long at a loss what to do. John Edmonds must certainly be got to bed, but one look at the bunks against the walls and the filthy rags that lay piled upon them, assured Hugh that the floor was infinitely preferable. He unpacked his own blankets, gathered up those that lay on the bench and made a bed upon the rough board flooring. It required almost unbelievable effort to arouse John Edmonds and move him, helplessly weak as he was, to the improvised couch. Hugh did not stop to rekindle the lantern, but flung more wood upon the fire and by its light went about the task of getting his patient partly undressed and of making him more comfortable.
During these ministrations, poor Nicholas, not realizing that his share of usefulness was over, contrived to make himself continually in the way. He seemed at least ten sizes too big for the tiny cabin and to have the idea that the best thing he could do was to keep as near to Edmonds as possible. Hugh pushed him out of the way a score of times, stumbled over him in the half dark and felt, every time he stood still for a moment, that cold nose pushed into his hand as though the big dog were begging him to do his best. At last the worried creature subsided, and lay down at the sufferer’s feet, with his chin on his paws and his dark eyes still following Hugh wherever he went. The boy tried everything he knew and, finally, kneeling beside his patient on the floor, was rewarded by seeing the uneasy stupor pass into something like natural slumber. He waited a long time to assure himself that Edmonds’ breathing was easier and quieter and that he really slept. Then he got up stiffly, mended the fire once more and began to explore the resources of the little cabin.
In a store-shed behind the one room he found an open window, through which Nicholas had evidently made his way when he had set out on his own expedition. He also discovered a can of oil, with which he filled the lantern so that it could be lit again. The yellow light, falling upon the table, showed him something that he had not seen before, a note scrawled hastily in pencil on brown paper.
“John,” it ran, “I have gone for help, but not to Oscar Dansk, because I promised you I would not. I have gone to the Indian village at Two Rivers and will try to send some one into Rudolm for a doctor. I will be back before a great many hours. Dick.”
With the letter still in his hand, Hugh sat down beside the fire to try to think the matter out. It was evident that the two Edmonds had taken shelter from the storm in the Pirate’s cabin and that John had become so ill that his younger brother, in alarm, had gone for aid. Their plight must have been desperate indeed for Dick to leave his brother alone in such a place. But why should he have gone so far when just across the ravine help was to be had? Why did he speak of a promise? It was very hard to understand!
Nicholas arose from where he had been lying and came to stand beside him, arching his curly neck as Hugh stroked it, and trying to burrow his head under the boy’s arm.
“You could tell me all about it if you could talk,” said Hugh in a whisper. “Oh, dear, it is such a puzzle, I wish you could.”
He began to remember now that Jethro had dropped some hint of a misunderstanding between John Edmonds and Oscar Dansk. He had hardly noticed it when it had been mentioned, but now he commenced to recall the fact more clearly.
“In the end even John Edmonds lost faith in Oscar’s plan about the road, and that nearly broke his heart,” Jethro had said.
Plainly, the quarrel had been a serious one, if Edmonds was so determined not to receive aid from Oscar’s hands. And how had Oscar taken it? Even at that moment he was out there in the storm, risking his life, risking the plan for which he cared even more than life—he was doing this for the friend with whom he had quarreled.
“Oh, Nicholas,” exclaimed Hugh as he squeezed the big dog’s ears, “oh, Nicholas, that Oscar Dansk is a real man!”
One thing still so puzzled him that his baffled thoughts came back to it again and again. Was it the two Edmonds who had occupied the Pirate’s shack yesterday, that quiet Sunday when he and Oscar had sat talking so long before the cottage door? Was it the smoke from their fire that he had seen rising from the chimney?
After long reflection, during which his thoughts began to wander sleepily here and there and had to be brought back again with a jerk, he began to be certain that it could not have been the two Edmonds brothers. He himself had seen three men walk across the clearing and from the letter he could make sure that Dick and his brother had been alone. Besides, the distance was not so great that he could not have made out so big a creature as Nicholas, had the dog been with them. Evidently the pirates had come and gone before the storm—but why? Evidently the Edmonds, after the wind and rain had come on in such fierceness, had taken refuge there—but how did they dare? And, evidently, he was growing very sleepy now, but the force of this new thought served to rouse him completely again, evidently the pirates would be returning—and when?
The night wore to a slow end, and day broke at last. With the first gray light there came a change in his patient, the fever was succeeded by chills and shivering and for an hour Hugh was doing his utmost with hot blankets and warming drinks. Gradually the trembling stopped and John Edmonds, opening his eyes, gave Hugh a look of bewildered amazement and stared about him as though the cabin and the boy were both totally unfamiliar. It was not until his eyes fell upon Nicholas that he seemed satisfied and dropped off to sleep again. It was broad daylight now and time for Hugh to realize that he was exceedingly hungry. He fell to examining his own stores, Edmonds’ and Half-Breed Jake’s, to see what the combined larder afforded. There was not much in his pack, for he had not thought he would be very long away from the cottage; there was nothing in Edmonds’, but quite a supply of flour and bacon in Jake’s store room.
“I don’t care to use anything that belongs to that gang unless I have to,” he thought. “It was probably all stolen in the first place.”
As he was putting one of the bags back into place, he knocked down a gun that had been standing in the corner and that now fell at his feet with a loud clatter. He picked it up and recognized with delight that it was Oscar’s rifle, the same one that he himself had dropped in the woods the day that he was lost. This would be a prize indeed to take back with him when the time should come to go. But how had the pirates come by it? Had somebody been following that day in the forest, was the same somebody even now following Oscar wherever he had gone?
He made his breakfast and fed Nicholas from his own supplies. Fortunately he knew enough not to try to give food to John Edmonds, who was sleeping uneasily again, as though the fever was once more beginning to rise. Hugh, sitting beside him, began to do some very intense calculating as to who would be the most likely to come back first, Dick ............