Mr. Auld was a medical missionary, and he confirmed what I had feared.

Jake had had a stroke.

The only articulate words Meaghan uttered in his mumblings were, "Rita, Rita, Rita." Again and again he came over the name. At last I promised him I would run over and bring her to him.

That seemed to content him, but his eyes still kept roving round restlessly.

Mr. Auld injected some morphine through Jake's arm in order to give his brain the rest that it evidently sorely needed.

"There is little we can do, George," said the minister. "He may be all right to-morrow, but for his physical helplessness;--and, even that may abate. Between you and me, I pray to G.o.d he may not live."

"But what can have caused it, Mr. Auld?"

"If Jake only could have been able to drink as other men do,--drink, get drunk and leave off,--he never would have come to this. His const.i.tution was never made for such drinking as he has indulged in.

No man's const.i.tution is."

"Are you going to send him down to the city?" I asked.

"Not if you will bear with him here. It would do no good to move him.

I would advise his remaining here. He will be happier, poor fellow. I shall run in early to-morrow."

I fetched Rita over that night and she remained with the old miner right along.

Her cheery presence brightened up the stricken man wonderfully.

Next day, he could talk more intelligibly and, with help, he got up and sat on a chair.

The Rev. William Auld called and left a jar containing some hideous little leeches in water. He gave me instructions that, if Jake took any sudden attack and the blood pressure in his head appeared great, I was to place two of these blood-sucking creatures on each of his temples, to relieve him.

He showed me how to fix them to the flesh.

"Once they are on, do not endeavour to pull them off," he explained.

"When they have gorged themselves, they will drop off. After that, they will die unless you place them upon a dish of salt, when they will sicken and disgorge the blood they have taken. Then, if you put them back into a jar of fresh water, they will become lively as ever and will soon be ready for further use."

"I hope to G.o.d I may not have to use them," I exclaimed fervently, shuddering at the gruesome thoughts the sight of the hideous little reptiles conjured up in me.

And I was saved from having to partic.i.p.ate in the disgusting operation, for, at the end of the week, Jake was seized through the night for the second time. Toward morning, he revived and spoke to Rita and me like the dear old Jake we used to know.

"Guess I got to pa.s.s in my checks, folks. I ain't been very good neither. But I ain't done n.o.body no harm as I can mind;--n.o.body, but maybe Jake Meaghan.

"Say, George! You like me,--don't you?"

"I like you for the real gentleman you are, Jake," I answered, laying my hand on his brow.

"You like me too, Rita,--don't you?"

"You bet I do!" she replied, dropping back into the slang that Jake best understood.

He was happy after that and smiled crookedly. But, in the early morning, a violent fit of convulsions, in all its contorting agonies, caught hold of him. His head at last dropped back on Rita's arm and Jake Meaghan was no more.

I covered up his face with a sheet, and we closed the door, leaving the faithful Mike alone by the bedside.

I led the little, sorrowing Rita down to her boat and kissed her as I sent her across the Bay, home. Then, with a leaden heart, I went back, to sit disconsolately in my own cottage, feeling as if I had lost a part of myself in losing my old, eccentric, simple-minded friend.

I opened up the papers Jake had left in my care and, as I read his will, it made me feel how little I knew of him after all and what a strange way he had of working out his ideas to what he considered their logical conclusion.

His will was a short doc.u.ment, and quite clear.

He wished to be buried in Vancouver. All he possessed, he left to Rita 'because Rita was always a good girl.' If Rita married George Bremner, the ten thousand dollars lying in the bank was to become her own, under her immediate and full control; but, should she marry any other man, or should she remain unmarried for a period of three years from Jake's death, this money was to be invested for her in the form of an annuity, in a reliable insurance company whose name was mentioned.

He left Mike, the dog, to the care of George Bremner.

The more I thought over that will, the more I cogitated over what was really at the back of Jake's mind.

Did he think, in some way, that there was an understanding between Rita and me? or, as probably was more likely, was it an unexpressed desire of his that Rita,--my little, mercurial pupil, Rita,--and I should marry and settle down somewhere at Golden Crescent?

Alas! for old Jake. Who knows what was in that big, wayward heart of his?

Mike kept faithful watch over Jake's body, until they came to take it away. He neither ate nor slept. He just lay on the floor, with his head resting on his front paws and his eyes riveted on the bed where Jake was.

We had to throw a blanket over Mike and hold him down bodily before the undertakers could remove his dead master.

All the way out to the steamer, we could hear Mike's dismal howling.

Never did such cries come from any dog. They did not seem the howls of a brute, but the wailings of a human soul that was slowly being torn to shreds.

My heart ached more for that poor creature than it did even for Jake.

All afternoon, all through that first night and still in the early hours of the next morning, the dog sobbed and wailed as if its more-than-human heart were breaking.

At last, I could stand the strain no longer. I went down with some food and drink for him and in the hope that I would be able to pacify him and comfort him in his loss. But the moment I opened the door, he tore out, as if possessed, down on to the beach and into the water.

Out, out he went, in the direction the steamer had gone the day before.

I got into Jake's boat and followed him as quickly as I could, but we were a long way out before I got up with him,--swimming strongly, gamely, almost viciously; on,--on,--heading for the Ghoul Rock and for the cross-currents at the open sea.

I reached alongside him, but always he sheered away.

I spoke to him kindly and coaxingly, but all I got from him in reply was a whimpering sob, as if to say:--

"Oh! you are only a human: how can you understand?"

I succeeded in catching hold of him and I lifted him into the boat. He struggled out of my grasp back into the water. Three times I brought him in and three times he broke from me and plunged into the sea, swimming always out and out.

I had not the heart to trouble him any more.

After all, what right had I to interfere? What right had I to try to go between the soul of a man and the soul of a dog?

"G.o.d speed!--you brave, old, lion-hearted Mike. G.o.d speed!" I cried.

"Go to him. You were two of a kind. May you soon catch up with him, and may both of you be happy."