第94章

I'm working for myself in this game. If any combination wants to shove my way, they can jump in. They'll quit when it don't pay to shove, I guess. Me the same. You fellers ain't any interest in me, I reckon."

"Well, do you imagine the doctor has?"

"Mexico" paused, then said thoughtfully, "Blanked if I can git on to his game!"

"Oh, come, 'Mexico,' you can't get on to him? He's working you.

You don't really think he has your interest at heart?"

"Can't quite tell." "Mexico" wore a vexed and thoughtful air.

"Wish I could. If I thought so I'd--"

"What?"

"Tie up to him tight, you bet your eternal life!" There was a sudden gleam from under "Mexico's" heavy brows and a ring in his usually drawling voice, that sufficiently attested his earnestness.

"There ain't too many of that kind raound."

"What do you think of that?" inquired the editor, as "Mexico" sauntered out of the door.

"Think? I think there's a law against gamblers in this province and it ought to be enforced."

"That means war," said the editor.

"Well, let it come. That doctor is the whole trouble, I can see.

I'd give a thousand dollars down to see him out of the country."

But there was no sign that the doctor had any desire to leave the country, and all who knew him were quite certain that until he should so desire, leave he would not. All through the winter he went about his work with a devotion that taxed even his superb physical strength to the uttermost. In addition to his work as Medical Superintendent of the railroad he had been asked to take oversight of the new coal mines opening up here and there in the Pass, which brought him no end of both labour and trouble. The managers of the mines held the most primitive ideas in regard to both safety in operating a mine and sanitation of miners' quarters.

Consequently, the doctor had to enter upon a long campaign of education. It was an almost hopeless task. The directors were remote from the ground and were unimpressed by the needs so urgently reported by their doctor. The managers on the ground were concerned chiefly with keeping down the expenses of operation. The miners themselves were, as a class, too well accustomed to the wretched conditions under which they lived and worked to make any strenuous objection.

How to bring about a better condition of things became, with the doctor, a constant subject of thought. It was also the theme of conversation on the occasion of his monthly visits to the Kuskinook Hospital, where it had become an established custom for Dick and him to meet since his return from Scotland.

"We'll get them to listen when we kill a few score men, not before," grumbled Barney to Dick and Margaret.

"It's the universal law," replied Dick. "Some men must die for their nation. It's been the way from the first."

"But, Barney, is it wise that you should worry yourself and work yourself to death as you are doing?" said Margaret, anxiously.

"You know you can't stand this long. You are not the man you were when you came back."

Barney only smiled. "That would be no great matter," he said, lightly. "But there is no fear of me," he added. "I don't pine for an early death, you know. I've got a lot to live for."

There was silence for a minute or two. They were thinking of the grave in the little churchyard across the sea. Ever since Barney's return, and as often as they met together, they allowed themselves to think and speak freely of the little valley at Craigraven, so full of light and peace, with its grave beside the little church.

At first Dick and Margaret shrank from all reference to Iola, and sought to turn Barney's mind from thoughts so full of pain. But Barney would not have it so. Frankly and simply he began to speak of her, dwelling lovingly and tenderly upon all the details of the last days of her life, as he had gathered them from Lady Ruthven, her friend.

"It would be easier for me not to speak of her," he had said on his return, "but I've lost too much to risk the loss of more. I want you to talk of her, and by and by I shall find it easy."

And this they did most loyally, and with tender solicitude for him, till at length the habit grew, so that whenever they came together it only deepened and chastened their joy in each other to keep fresh the memory of her who had filled so large a place, and so vividly, in the life of each of them. And this was good for them all, but especially for Barney. It took the bitterness out of his grief, and much of the pain out of his loss. The memory of that last evening with Iola, and Lady Ruthven's story of the purifying of her spirit, during those last few months, combined to throw about her a radiance such as she had never shed even in the most radiant moments of her life.

"There is only place for gratitude," he said, one evening, to them.

"Why should I allow any mean or selfish thought to spoil my memory of her or to hinder the gratitude I ought to feel, that her going was so free from pain, and her last evening so full of joy?"

It was with these feelings in his heart that he went back to the camps to his work among the sick and wounded in body and in heart.