Louis Tracy - The Terms of Surrender

“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.