The Winds of Chance Part 33

Linton refused. "Don't you know ANYTHING?" he queried. "Never move a sick person unless you have to. Give it to her as she lays."

"How you goin' to feed medicine out of a spoon to anybody layin'

down?" the other demanded.

"Easy!" Tom took the gla.s.s and the teaspoon; together the two men bent over the bed.

But Linton's hands were shaky; when he pressed the spoon to Rouletta's lips he spilled its contents. The girl rolled her head restlessly.

"Pshaw! She moved."

"She never moved," Jerry contradicted. "You missed her." From his nostrils issued that annoying, that insulting, snort of derision which so sorely tried his partner's patience. "You had a fair shot at her, layin' down, Tom, and you never touched her."

"Maybe I'd have had better luck if you hadn't jiggled me."

"h.e.l.l! Who jiggled--?"

"'Sh--h!" Once more Mr. Quirk had spoken aloud. "If you've got to holler, go down by the rapids."

After several clumsy attempts both men agreed that their patient had doubtless received the equivalent of a full dose of medicine, so Tom replaced the gla.s.s and spoon. "I'm a little out of practice," he explained.

"I thought you done fine." Jerry spoke with what seemed to be genuine commendation. "You got it into her nose every time."

Tom exploded with wrath and it was Jerry's turn to command silence.

"Why don't you hire a hall?" the latter inquired. "Or mebbe I better tree a 'c.o.o.n for you so you can bark as loud as you want to. Family man! Huh!" Linton bristled aggressively, but the whisperer continued:

"One head of children don't make a family any more 'n one head of heifers makes a herd."

Tom paled; he showed his teeth beneath his gray mustache. Leaning forward, he thrust his quivering bearded face close to the hateful countenance opposite him. "D'you mean to call my daughter a heifer?" he demanded, in restrained fury.

"Keep them whiskers to yourself," Jerry snapped. "You can't pick a row with me, Tom; I don't quarrel with n.o.body. I didn't call your daughter a heifer, and you know I didn't. No doubt she would of made a fine woman if she'd of grown up, but--Say! I bet I know why you lost her. I bet you poured so much medicine in her crib that she drownded." Jerry giggled at this thought.

"That ain't funny," the other rumbled. "If I thought you meant to call a member of my family a heifer--"

"You've called your wife worse 'n that. I've heard you."

"I meant everything I said. She was an old catamount and--"

"Prob'bly she was a fine woman." Jerry had a discourteous habit of interrupting. "No wonder she walked out and left you flat--she was human. No doubt she had a fine character to start with. So did I, for that matter, but there's a limit to human endurance."

"You don't have to put up with me any longer than you want to,"

Linton stormed, under his breath. "We can get a divorce easy. All it takes is a saw."

"You made that crack once before, and I called your bluff!"

Jerry's angry face was now out-thrust; only with difficulty did he maintain a tone inaudible to the sick girl. "Out of pity I helped you up and handed you back your crutches. But this time I'll let you lay where you fall. A hundred dollars a dozen for lemons! For a poor little sick girl! You 'ain't got the bowels of a shark!"

"It was your proposition!"

"It wasn't!"

"It was!"

"Some folks lie faster 'n a goat can gallop."

"Meaning me?"

"Who else would I mean?"

"Why don't you CALL me a liar and be done with it?"

"I do. It ain't news to anybody but you!"

Having safely landed his craft below the rapids, 'Poleon Doret hurried back to his tent to find the partners sitting knee to knee, face to face, and hurling whispered incoherencies at each other. Both men were in a poisonous mood, both were ripe for violence. They overflowed with wrath. They were glaring; they shook their fists; they were racked with fury; insult followed abuse; and the sounds that issued from their throats were like the rustlings of a corn-field in an autumn gale. Nor did inquiry elicit a sensible explanation from either.

"Heifer, eh? Drowned my own child, did I?" Tom ground his teeth in a ferocious manner.

"Don't file your tusks for me," Jerry chattered; "file the saw.

We're goin' to need it."

"You men goin' cut dat boat in two again?" 'Poleon inquired, with astonishment.

"Sure. And everything we've got."

It was Linton who spoke; there was a light of triumph in his eyes, his face was ablaze with an unholy satisfaction. "We've been drawing lots for twenty minutes, and this time--I GOT THE STOVE!"

CHAPTER XVI

Once again Tom and Jerry's skiff had been halved, once again its owners smarted under the memory of insults unwarranted, of gibes that no apology could atone for. This time it had been old Jerry who cooked his supper over an open fire and old Tom who stretched the tarpaulin over his stove. Neither spoke; both were sulky, avoiding each other's eye; there was an air of bitter, implacable hostility.

Into this atmosphere of constraint came 'Poleon Doret, and, had it not been for his own anxieties, he would have derived much amus.e.m.e.nt from the situation. As it was, however, he was quite blind to it, showing nothing save his own deep feeling of concern.

"M'sieu's," he began, hurriedly, "dat gal she's gettin' more seeck. I'm scare' she's goin' die to-night. Mebbe you set up wit'

me, eh?"

Tom quickly volunteered: "Why, sure! I'm a family man. I--"

"Family man!" Jerry snorted, derisively. "He had one head, mister, and he lost it inside of a month. I'm a better nurse than him."

"Bien! I tak' you both," said 'Poleon.

But Jerry emphatically declined the invitation. "Cut me out if you aim to make it three-handed--I'd Jim the deck, sure. No, I'll set around and watch my grub-pile."

Tom addressed himself to 'Poleon, but his words were for his late partner.

"That settles me," said he. "I'll have to stick close to home, for there's people I wouldn't trust near a loose outfit."