"Oh, fiddlesticks!" said Jan in a bored voice. "Go down to the grill and eat something. And order me an English mutton chop and some macaroni. I'll be down to dinner in five minutes."

Sid aggrievedly obeyed.

CHAPTER x.x.xII

ON FINLAKE MOUNTAIN

Frank Barrington was to tell wryly in the grillroom of that night-ride in the sleety wind through a polar world of ghostly, ice-hung trees.

Every flying rod of the sleazy road he knew was a peril. Even the chains failed at times to grip. For eight hours the whir of the motor and the tearing sound of the wind blared in his ears. For eight hours he marveled at the silence and efficiency of the m.u.f.fled driver beside him who had apparently said all he intended to say upon the ferry. He drove even faster than Frank had antic.i.p.ated; and he drove with more care, as if, defiantly, he feared the traps of an evil destiny to keep him from his goal. At times he turned the swiveled searchlight upon a road-sign and evoked a glistening play of silver on the trees. Once, cursing, he changed a tire; once the car skidded dangerously in a circle but to Frank his air of confidence was hypnotically convincing.

The final stretch of the journey became a dim and frosty blur of sleety trees.

At Finlake they began to climb. It was after three when the headlights blazed upon the quarry.

"I wired the doctor to wait," said Kenny. "He knows you're with me."

"We leave the car here?"

"We'll have to." He turned his searchlight on the cliff ahead.

"There's a path yonder."

"And which shack, I wonder?"

"There's a light in only one."

Frank worked his stiffened face to relieve the feeling of cold contorted rubber and followed Kenny up the path. Light glimmered dimly through the jungle of frost upon the shack window. Fronded whitely by the sleet, the panes loomed out of the dark like an incandescent series of camera plates, bizarre and oriental. Frank shivered in the wind.

Doctor Cole opened the door. Beyond in the rude room of the shack a lamp flared smokily.

"Brian?" said Kenny, his color gone.

"Why," said Doctor Cole, "his pulse is a lot stronger, Mr. O'Neill, and he complains now of pain--"

"That means?"

"It means, Kenny," said Frank Barrington, "that he has pa.s.sed on normally to the stage of reaction." But his keen, intelligent eyes sought Doctor Cole with a furtive lifting of his brows and asked a question.

"Not a sign," said the little doctor gladly. "If anything he's a shade too wide awake. And irritable. I've been setting his leg--"

Kenny wheeled fiercely.

"His leg!" he said. "His leg!"

"I'm sorry," stammered the doctor. "I--I quite forgot you didn't know. . . . Broken between the knee and the hip," he added, turning to Barrington. "I thought it merely paresis of the muscles until--"

"Where is he?" put in Kenny sharply. "What room?"

"There are only two rooms here," said Doctor Cole. "The stairway's yonder."

"Just a minute, Kenny." Frank checked him with a gesture. "I'm going up first with Doctor Cole."

Kenny groaned.

"Sit down," said Frank kindly. "Where's some brandy? Thank you, Doctor. Now, Kenny, listen, please. The first risk to Brian's life is past. I mean death from shock. He's not drowsy and he's feeling pain.

His leg, in the face of other possibilities, is merely painful. But I must look at his head--"

"Frank, darlin'," said Kenny patiently, "I brought you up here to order us all around. Go to it."

He flung himself into a chair by the stove and drowsing after a while in a reactive sweep of exhaustion, awakened with a terrified jerk. A boy was banking the red-hot stove, his white face like and yet unlike--Joan's.

"Mr. O'Neill," he blurted with a boyish sob, "I--I did it. I was driving the mule-cart up the path. Grogan told me not to but I--I coaxed Tony. And when some earth crumbled ahead I jerked back--too quickly--and scared the mule. I've got to tell somebody. I've got to. . . . And n.o.body listens--"

"Tell me the rest," said Kenny wanly. "I've been wonderin'."

"You see, Mr. O'Neill," he gulped, his eyes dark with grief and horror, "the mule went back upon his haunches and drove the cart against a boulder. It came out and crashed over the ledge and through the roof of the dynamite shack--"

"G.o.d!" In that vivid moment of his picturing, Kenny wondered why he should think of bouillon cups crashing loudly on a roof.

"And the other men were only scratched. A while ago--when Brian sent for me--he thought of it through all his pain--"

"He would," said Kenny.

"I--I wanted to kill myself."

"Oh, nonsense," said Kenny kindly.

Don flung his arm across his eyes and sobbed aloud.

"Oh," he choked, "if someone would only swear at me!"

"I--I'd like to," said Kenny wryly, "for your sake and for my own, but I'm all--in."

He stared dully at the fire until the stair creaked and Frank came in with Doctor Cole.

"There isn't yet," Frank told him, "a single pressure symptom that I consider alarming and Doctor Cole has done wonders with his leg. But any emotional excitement is a danger. Three minutes, old man." He followed Kenny up the stairway, watch in hand.

The raftered room was dim and quiet. Kenny sickened at the faint odor of antiseptics and softly closed the door.

Brian opened his eyes.

"Kenny, old dear," he said softly, "all these doctors are b.o.o.bs. Frank in particular is an awful a.s.s. I told him so. He's loaded with fool questions. One look at the Irish face of you is worth them all."

Kenny, staring at the pallid face upon the pillow, blinked and smiled.

"Frank told me you drove up here through the sleet," marveled Brian, clinging to his hand. "A G.o.d-forsaken spot! I'm sorry--"