CHAPTER III
SHOWING HOW POWER ACQUIRED A LIMP
If any sentient thought loomed vaguely through the haze of pain and exhaustion which enwrapped Power like a pall, it was that he would probably lie there a long time before help came; yet he had hardly uttered that half-delirious vow before he was aware of an animal snuffing cautiously around him, and the knowledge galvanized him into a species of activity. He turned on his right side, and raised himself on one hand, the fingers of which closed instinctively on a heavy stone as supplying a weapon of defense.
But his eyes rested only on a dog, a dapper fox-terrier, whose furtive curiosity changed instantly to alarm, as it retreated some distance, and barked excitedly. Then Power saw the animal’s master, a stranger, or, at any rate, a newcomer, in the district, a man of about his own age, who rode a compactly-built pony with the careless ease of good horsemanship, and was dressed de rigueur, except for the broad-brimmed hat demanded by the Colorado sun.
Evidently the horseman was not surprised at finding someone lying in the Gulch.
“Hullo!” he cried. “Had a spill?”
Power tried to speak; but the dust and grit in his throat rendered his words almost inaudible. Then the other understood that if, as he imagined, copious drafts of champagne had caused some unaccustomed head to reel, the outcome was rather more serious than a mere tumble. He urged the pony rapidly nearer, and dismounted, and a glance at Power’s face dispelled his earlier notion.
“What’s up?” he inquired in a sympathetic tone. “Are you hurt?”
Power’s second effort at ordered speech was more successful. “Yes,” he said. “My leg is broken.”
“Ah, that’s too bad. Which leg?”
“The left.”
“Were you thrown?”
“No.”
The stranger noted the soiled condition of the injured man’s clothing. He saw that a spur had been torn off, and among the drying dirt on Power’s face and hands were some more ominous streaks; since a man may not squirm in agony beneath a shower of jagged granite and escape some nasty abrasions of the skin.
“I see,” he said gently. “You fell from up there somewhere,” and he looked at the cliff, “tripped over that missing spur, I suppose. Well, what’s to be done? Were you at the ranch? I didn’t happen to come across you. Shall I take you there?”
“No, please – to Bison – to MacGonigal’s store.”
“Ah, yes. But it’s an awkward business. You can’t possibly hold yourself in the saddle. Can you stand on one leg, even for a few seconds?”
“I fear not. I’m about done.”
“But if I carry you to the face of the rock there, and prop you against it?”
“Yes, I’ll do that.”
This friend in need pulled the reins over the pony’s head, passed them through his arm, lifted Power, not without some difficulty, and brought him to a spot where the precipice rose like a wall.
“There you are!” he gasped; for he was of slender proportions, and Power’s weight was deceptive, owing to his perfect physical fitness. “Now I’ll mount, and hold you as comfortably as I can; but I don’t know how this fat geegee will behave under a double load, so I must have my hands free at first. Will you grip me tight? It may hurt like sin – ”
“Go right ahead!” said Power.
Sure enough, when the pony found what was expected of him, he snorted, raised head and tail, and trotted a few indignant paces.
The rider soon quieted him to a walk; but they were abreast of the scene of Power’s accident before he was aware that the man clasping his body had uttered neither word nor groan, though the prancing of the horse must have caused him intense agony.
“By Jove!” came the involuntary cry, “you’ve got some sand! I’d have squealed like a stuck pig if I was asked to endure that. Who are you? I’m Robert H. Benson, Mr. Marten’s private secretary.”
“My name is Power,” was the answer, in a thick murmur.
“Bower?”
“No – Power.”
“Not John Darien Power, who was at Sacramento!”
“Yes.”
“Gee whizz! I’ve written you several letters. You remember my initials, R. H. B.?”
“Yes.”
“Can you talk? Say if you’d rather not.”
“No, no. It’s all right. Anyhow – I’d – sooner – try.”
“Does the boss know you’re here?”
“I guess not. I wrote him – to Denver; but he’s been engaged – otherwise.”
“Ra-ther! Getting wed. You’ve heard? I’m sure you’re as much surprised as any of us. You could have knocked me down with a feather when he told me why I was wired to come West by next train from New York. ‘I want you to take hold,’ he said. ‘I’m off to Europe for six months on my wedding trip.’ That was the day before yesterday, and here he’s gone already! I had a sort of notion, too, that our beloved employer would never take unto himself a wife, or, if he did, that the U. S. A. would hear about it.”
A hard smile illuminated the pallor of Power’s face. “Marten doesn’t hire a brass band when he has any startling proposition in mind,” he said.
Benson laughed. He was a cheerful, outspoken youngster – exactly the kind of private secretary the secretive millionaire might have been expected to avoid like the plague, if Marten had not chosen him deliberately because of those very qualities.
“No,” he chuckled. “You and I know that, don’t we? But signing on for a wife is a different matter to securing an option on a placer mine. I should have thought there would be things doing when H. M. joined the noble army of benedicts, especially after he had sorted out such a daisy… Sorry, Power! The peak of this saddle must be dashed uncomfortable. And, perhaps, I’m not carrying you to rights. One ought to be taught these things. Now, a cavalry soldier would be trained in the art of picking up a wounded mate, and in carrying him, too.”
“It’s not far. I can last out.”
“You don’t mind having a pow-wow? Guess you prefer it? You knew Miss Willard, I suppose? By the way, were you coming to the wedding?”
“No. I am here by chance.”
“Well, of course, I rather fancied that. If I had been asked offhand how much time that Sacramento job would use up, I should have said another three months, at least. Is all the machinery there?”
“Yes.”
“Pumps, and all?”
“Yes.”
“Sorry if I appear inquisitive, but – ”
“The pumps are working. I got a hustle on the contractors.”
“Great Scott! I should think so, indeed. They’ll make a song about it in Chicago. Have you sent in the consulting engineer’s certificate?”
“Yes. It’s in Denver.”
“Then I’ll tell you something that is good for broken legs. The boss was talking of you only yesterday. He said you were to collect five thousand dollars when that placer mine was in shape. He forgets nothing, does he?”
“Nothing.”
Power’s stricken state was sufficient excuse for any seeming lack of gratitude, and his rescuer’s mind reverted to the more immediate topic of the marriage.
“I asked if you were acquainted with Miss Willard,” he went on. “Naturally, you must have seen her often. She was born and bred on this ranch, I believe.”
“Bred here, yes; but born near Pueblo, I’ve been told.”
“Say, isn’t she a peach?”
“A pretty girl, very.”
“Rather quiet, though. Kind of subdued, to my taste. Life on the Dolores ranch must have been a mighty tough proposition, I imagine. But she’ll brighten up as Mrs. Marten. They all do.”
“Is Marten a sultan, then?”
The private secretary chortled over the joke. “I’m jiggered if I could have pulled off a wheeze like that if I had been chucked off a cliff and my leg was out of gear!” he cried. “No, my boy, Marten has a clean record in that respect. I’ve never known him look twice at any woman; though he’s had chances in plenty. What I mean is that these sweet young things who have never seen a real store, and don’t know sable from dyed rabbit, wake up amazingly when they’re Mrs. Somebody of Somewhere. Look at Mrs. Van Pieter! A year ago she was keeping tab on people who hired her father’s canoes at Portland, Maine, and it’s hardly a week since I met her in Tiffany’s, matching pearls at a thousand dollars a pick.”
“What were you doing in Tiffany’s?”
The question seemed to take Benson by surprise; but, though he might be talkative as a parrot, he did not discuss his employer’s personal behests.
“Having a look around,” he said.
“I thought you might be buying Mrs. Marten’s wedding gift,” went on Power.
“Well, as a guesser, you’d come out first in a prize competition.”
“It was – just – curiosity. I wondered – what – Marten gave her.”
“That’s no secret. She wore it today. A collarette of diamonds.”
“Ah, a collar! Has it a golden padlock? Is there a leash?”
“Say, now! Aren’t you feeling pretty bad? We’re going downhill, and it jolts. But we’re near that store. What’s the name?”
“MacGonigal’s.”
“To be sure. I had forgotten. Queer fellow, the proprietor. Looks like a character out of one of Bret Harte’s novels. Is there a doctor in Bison?”
“Yes – of a sort. He’s sober, some days.”
“Let’s hope this is one of the days.”
“Drunk or sober, he can pull a leg straight and tie it in splints.”
“But it ought to be fixed in plaster of Paris. That’s the latest dodge. Then you’ll be able to hobble about in less than a month. Why, here’s the storekeeper himself. He must have been looking this way.”
“He was expecting me. I promised to meet him about four o’clock.”
“Well, you’re on time.”
“Thanks to you.”
“Ah, come off! A lot I’ve done; though I do believe it was better to keep up a steady flow of chatter than to be asking you every ten yards how you were feeling… Hi, there! I’ve brought your friend Power; but he’s in rather bad shape. Had a fall up in the Gulch, and one leg is crocked.”
The pony needed no urging to halt, and Power, whose head was sunk between his shoulders, looked as if he would become insensible again at the mere thought of renewed exertion.
“A fall!” repeated MacGonigal, moving ponderously to the near side, and peering up into Power’s face. “Well, ef I ain’t dog-goned! What sort of a fall?”
“Just the common variety – downward,” said Benson. “His left leg is broken below the knee. Can you hold him until I hitch this fiery steed to a post? Then I’ll help carry him to a bedroom. After that, if I can be of any use, tell me what to do, or where to go – for the doctor, I mean.”
By this time MacGonigal had assured himself that Power’s clothing was not full of bullet-holes, and he began to believe that Benson, whom he recognized, was telling the truth.
“Give him to me,” he said, with an air of quiet self-confidence. “Back of some sugar casks in the warehouse thar you’ll find a stretcher. Bring that along, an’ we’ll lay him in the veranda till the doc shows up.”
Soon the hardly conscious sufferer was reposing with some degree of comfort in a shaded nook with his back to the light. MacGonigal, whose actions were strangely deft-handed and gentle for so stout a man, was persuading him to drink some brandy.
“He has collapsed all at once,” said Benson commiseratingly. “He perked up and chatted in great shape while I was bringing him through the Gulch.”
“Did he now?.. Yes, Derry, it’s me, Mac. Just another mouthful… An’ what did he talk about, Mr. Benson?”
“Oh, mostly about the wedding, I guess.”
“Nat’rally. He’d be kind of interested in hearin’ how Marten had scooped up Nancy Willard.”
Some acrid quality in the storekeeper’s tone must have pierced the fog which had settled on Power’s brain. He raised a hand to push away the glass held to his lips.
“Say, I’ve only secured a broken leg, Mac,” he murmured, smiling into the anxious face bent over him. “I don’t want to be doped as well. Perhaps Mr. Benson will mount that nag of his, and bring Peters.”
“Look-a here, Derry, hadn’t we better send to Denver?”
“No. Peters has set dozens of legs and arms.”
“I guess he’s back at the ranch. He went thar, an’ I hain’t seen him among the crowd.”
“Is he a tall, red-whiskered chap, with a nose that needs keeping out of the sun?” broke in Benson.
“Yep. That’s him.”
“Well, he’s there now – and – not so bad. Does he really understand bone-setting?”
“Sure. He’s all to rights when not too much in likker.”
“I’ll have him here in half an hour.”
Benson whistled to the dog, and they heard the clattering hoofbeats of the cob’s hurried departure. MacGonigal brought a chair, and sat by his friend’s side.
“Was it a reel tumble, Derry?” he asked softly.
“Seems like it, Mac. Don’t worry your kind old fat head. No one saw me. Let me lie quiet now, there’s a good soul. I’ve done enough thinking for today.”
“Say, Boy, kin yer smoke?”
“No – not till the doc is through.”
MacGonigal bit the end off a cigar, bit it viciously, as if he were annoyed at it. Then he struck a match by drawing it sharply along the side of his leg, and lit the cigar; but not another word did he utter until a thunder of hoofs disturbed the hot silence of the afternoon.
“Guess that’s some of the boys comin’ from the depot,” whispered Mac. “They’ll not suspicion you’re here, Derry, an’ I’ll soon have a stampede by tellin’ ’em the doc is loose among the bottles.”
True to his promise, he got rid of the thirsty ones quickly; for this smaller batch had not even awaited the departure of the train.
“Air you awake, Derry?” he inquired, when he had crept back softly to his chair.
“Yes.”
“What’s this yarn about One-thumb Jake shootin’ a rattler?”
“I – don’t know. He didn’t shoot me, Mac. I got slammed on a rock, good and hard.”
“I on’y axed because I’m nearly fed up with Jake an’ his gun-play.”
“Ah, quit it, you sleuth. Jake wouldn’t pull his gun on me, not even at Marten’s bidding.”
“He kin be the biggest damn fool in Bison when he’s loaded. Anyhow, I’ll take your say-so.”
There was another period of quietude, when brooding thought sat heavy on MacGonigal, and pain gnawed Power with its sharpest tooth. Then came the sound of galloping horses again, and Benson appeared, guiding a big man who rolled in his walk; for the fast canter had stirred many varieties of alcohol in an overburdened system. The private secretary’s voice was raised in order that the others might hear.
“I would advise you to bandage the limb sufficiently to give Mr. Power some sort of ease until Dr. Stearn comes from Denver,” he was urging. “I am sure that Mr. Marten would wish this case to be attended by his own doctor, and I know that Dr. Stearn attends him.”
“Stearn! What does that old mutt know about surgery?” shouted Peters. “I could set a compound fracture while he was searching around for his eyeglasses… Hullo, Mac! You’re always the right man in the right place. Bring me a highball, to clear the dust out of the pipes.”
“You jest fix Derry first, Peters, an’ you kin hev two highballs.”
The red-whiskered man, whose medical degree was a blend of sheer impudence and a good deal of rough-and-ready experience, knew MacGonigal so well that he did not attempt to argue.
“Very well,” he said sulkily. “Break up an egg box, and saw it into eighteen-inch lengths, four inches wide. You have a roll of lint and scissors? I’ll rip up his trousers, and have a look at the place.”
His actions were decided, but somewhat awkward. When Power winced because of a careless handling of the injured limb, he only guffawed.
“Nips you a bit!” he grunted. “Of course it does. I’d like to know what you expected. Did you fancy you could flop over the Gulch like a crow?.. Oh, here we are! Just an ordinary smash. Hurry up with those splints, Mac. Now, just set your teeth and grin hard while I pull… There! Did you hear it? I’ll not hurt you more than I can help while I do the dressing. Got any bromide in that den of yours, Mac? Well, give him a ten-grain dose every three hours till he sleeps. Get the rest of his clothes off, keep him in bed for three weeks, and the rest may be left safely to Nature. Gee whizz! I’m chewing mud. Where in hell do you keep your whisky?”
“Doctor” Peters had a professional manner which did not inspire confidence; but he seemed to understand what he was about, and Benson, when he could be of no further service, went to the reduction mill, where he had business which detained him until a late hour. Next morning, on his way to Denver, he called at the store, and visited Power, who was feeling a great deal better, and was confident that the damaged limb would soon be as sound as ever.
“I hope you won’t think it necessary to trouble Mr. Marten with any report of my accident,” went on the invalid. “You see, in a sort of a way, it happened in connection with his marriage, as I was watching the festivities when it happened – had my eyes anywhere but where they ought to be, I suppose – and if his wife came to hear of it she might take it to heart. Sometimes a woman has odd notions about such things occurring on her wedding day.”
“Right you are,” agreed Benson cheerfully.
A remark dropped by the manager of the mill had supplied a reason for the young engineer’s interest in the marriage, and he had come to the conclusion that the sooner the whole affair was forgotten the better it would be for all parties.
“I’ll be in Denver till September or thereabouts; but I’ll be seeing you long before then,” he continued. “What about squaring your account? I think I have all the details in the office.”
“Pay what is coming to me by check to Smith & Moffat’s bank,” said Power. “They’ll let me know when they get the money, and you can mail a receipt here for my signature. By the way, I wish to resign my position on Marten’s staff as from yesterday.”
“Sorry to hear that. Do you really mean it?”
“Yes.”
“Then I’ll put that through, also. Goodby, old chap, and good luck. You’ll be well looked after, I suppose?”
“I couldn’t be in better hands than Mac’s. If he didn’t own a hard head, his big heart would have ruined him long ago.”
“An unusual combination,” laughed Benson, and his eyes met Power’s quizzically. “Well, so long! Let me know if I can do anything.”
Beyond the purely business formalities connected with the payment of Power’s salary and the acceptance of his resignation, Benson heard little of him until ten days later, when a telegram reached him in the early morning. It was from MacGonigal, and read:
“Don’t like the look of Power’s leg. Send doctor.”
That afternoon Benson brought Dr. Stearn to the store, and MacGonigal explained that from some remark grunted by Peters when quite sober, and from personal observation, he was not satisfied with the appearance of Power’s injured limb. The doctor, a fully qualified medical man, was very wroth with Peters when he had made a brief examination of the patient.
“This is the work of an incompetent quack,” he said angrily. “Whoever the man may be, he is the worst sort of idiot – the sort that knows a little of what he is doing. The splints and bandaging have served their purpose only too well, because callous is forming already. Unless you wish to have one leg half an inch shorter than the other during the rest of your life, Mr. Power, you must let me put you under ether.”
“Why?” came the calm-voiced question.
“To put it plainly, your leg should be broken again, and properly set.”
“What is wrong with it?”
“You know you have two bones in that part of the leg which is below the knee, the tibia and the fibula? Well, they were broken – by a blow, was it? No, a fall – well, they practically amount to the same thing, though there are indications that this injury was caused by a blow – ”
“He fell off one rock onto another, doctor,” put in Benson.
“Ah, yes! That accounts for it. As I was saying, they were broken slantwise, and now, instead of being in correct apposition, the upper parts override the lower ones. Do you follow?”
“Suppose they are not interfered with, will they heal all right?” said Power.
“Y-yes,” came the grudging admission; “but you’ll walk with a limp.”
“Bar that, the left leg will be as strong as the right one?”
“Stronger, in that particular place. Nature does some first-rate grafting, when the stock is young and exceptionally healthy.”
Power smiled, almost with the compelling good-humor of other days. “Then I’ll limp along, Doctor,” he said. “I have things to do, and this enforced waste of time is the worst feature of the whole business. It is very good of you to come out here, and more than kind of Mr. Benson to accompany you; but I won’t, if I can avoid it, endure another ten days like the sample I have just passed through.”
“You’ll regret your decision later. There’s no means of adding that half inch afterward, you know.”
“I quite understand, Doctor. It’s a limp for life.”
Dr. Stearn felt the calf muscles and tendons again, and pressed the region of the fracture with skilled gentleness.
“It’s a pity,” he growled. “You’ve made a wonderful recovery. If, when you are able to hobble about, you meet this rascal, Peters, and shoot him, call me as a witness in your behalf. It would be a clear case of justifiable homicide!”
So that is how John Darien Power acquired the somewhat jerky movement which characterizes his walk today; though the cause of it is blurred by the mists of a quarter of a century. The red-whiskered Peters was shot long ago, not by Power, but by an infuriated miner from whose jaw he had wrenched two sound teeth before discovering the decayed stump which led to this display of misplaced energy. It was well that such impostors should be swept out of the townlets of Colorado, even if the means adopted for their suppression were drastic. They wrought untold mischief by their pretensions, and brought hundreds of men and women to needless death. They did some little good, perhaps, in communities where physicians and surgeons were few and far between; but their rough and partly successful carpentry of the human frame did not atone for the misery they inflicted in cases which demanded a delicately exact and scientific diagnosis. At any rate, they have gone, never to be seen again in Colorado, and the precise manner of their departure, whether by rum, or lead, or wise and far-reaching laws, does not concern this narrative.
What does concern it most intimately is the first use Power made of his limping steps; for upon their direction and daily increasing number depended the whole of his subsequent history. Life still held for him certain rare and noteworthy phases – developments which, when viewed through the vista of many years, seemed as inevitable and preordained as the ordered sequence of a Greek tragedy. Yet, on the day he hobbled out into the sunshine again, it was just the spin of a coin whether he rode to the Dolores ranch or took train for Denver, and it is safe to say that had he done the one thing instead of the other his future career must have been drawn into an entirely different channel.
At least, that is the way men reason when they review the past, and single out some trivial act which apparently governed their destinies; whereat, in all probability, the gods smile pityingly, for the lives of some men cannot be the outcome of idle chance, and John Darien Power’s life was assuredly no commonplace one.