The Sealed Valley. Footner Hulbert
had brought about an unusual degree of intimacy in a few weeks. In other words, they were almost honest with each other. At present Ralph's facetious manner only half concealed a very real grievance against life.
"Romance is extinct, like the dodo," he announced.
Dan was a tall, lean young man, inclining to the saturnine type. "That requires examination," he said judicially. "First, define Romance."
"Romance," said Ralph, throwing back his head and puffing a tall column of smoke toward the ceiling—the dreaminess of his eyes had full sway at that moment—"Romance is every man's unrealized desire."
"You contradict yourself," said Dan with provoking exactness. "How can a thing be dead which was never realized?"
The question was awkward, so Ralph serenely ignored it. "Ever since I went into long trousers I've been looking for it," he went on lightly. "Nothing doing!"
"Maybe that's the trouble," suggested Dan; "maybe Romance begins at home."
"Did you ever find it?" challenged Ralph.
"Never looked," returned Dan calmly.
"Oh, you've no imagination!"
Dan chuckled. "According to that, Romance is only imaginary, then. Got you again, Doc!"
Naturally these discussions never arrived anywhere. When one was stumped for an answer he hit out on a new line. The thing was to keep the ball in play by any device until the next meal created a diversion.
"I thought college would be romantic," Ralph went on. "I had fun of course, bully fun, but just the ordinary college fun. There were girls, plenty of 'em, dear little things! transparent as window-glass. Gad! a man longs to meet a woman who can fascinate him, and stir him to the bottom, and keep him guessing!"
"Well, let me see what we've got in Fort Edward," said Dan. "To begin with, there's Biddy Maroney——"
"Cut it out!" cried Ralph. "Fatal to thoughts of Romance! After college there was the medical school and the hospitals," he went on. "They knocked the spots out of Romance. Say, a city doctor loses faith in his fellowmen. I decided I'd hang out my shingle in the woods, and I came up here because it was the beyondest place I could hear of."
"Thinking you'd surely find Romance somewhere back of beyond," suggested Dan.
"Sure! The noble red man, you understand; the glittering-eyed prospector lusting for gold; the sturdy pioneer hewing a home for his brood in the wilderness—and all that! Well, here I am, and what is it?—a village of poor suckers done up brown, like myself, by the real-estate sharks outside!"
"Striking metaphor!" murmured Dan.
"Everybody sitting on their tails expecting to be rich any day by the grace of God!" Ralph went on. "And Indians! swillers of beer-dregs! Town scavengers! Moreover, it's the healthiest place on earth, I believe. I never get a case but a scalp wound or two after a big night at Maroney's. As for Romance, she's as far away as ever! And I'm getting on!"
"True," said Dan, with a serious wag of the head, "you've no time to lose!"
As a matter of fact, Ralph's youthfulness was a sore subject with him, as it is with all young doctors.
He let the dig pass unnoticed. "I've almost given up hope," he said.
There was a knock at the door.
"Here she is now," said Dan dryly.
"Come in," said Ralph indifferently.
It was a woman, but only an Indian woman dressed in a ridiculous travesty of white women's clothes. The two young men lowered their feet, and exchanged a humorous glance. After an idle look, Ralph's regard returned to his pipe. To tell the truth, he had found the Indians around Fort Edward as patients neither profitable nor grateful, and he could not be expected to welcome a new one with any enthusiasm. Dan was the more impressed; he studied the girl with a kind of wonder, and from her looked curiously at his friend.
"I want to see the doctor," she said, in a soft and agreeable voice.
"What can I do for you?" asked Ralph, off-hand.
She did not answer immediately, and he looked at her again. Her eyes were bent on Dan, unmistakably conveying a polite hint. Dan saw it and rose.
"See you at Maroney's at dinner," he said, passing out with a backward glance at his friend; teasing, a little wondering still, and frankly envious.
"Well?" said Ralph, looking his caller over with a professional eye. She seemed healthy. For an Indian she was very good-looking, but this fact reached him only by degrees. Her clothes were deplorable: a flat red hat with a pert frill balanced crazily on her glossy hair; a curiously tortured blue satin waist; a full woollen skirt hanging on her like an ill-made bag, and cheap, new, misshapen shoes. The effect was as if some wag had draped a classic statue in a low comedy make-up. Naturally Ralph received his first impression from the make-up.
In answer to his measuring glance she said: "I not sick. I come to get you for my mot'er."
Ralph reached for his hat.
"Wait a minute," she said. "We must talk before."
"Sit down," said Ralph.
She shook her head. "I stand," she said coolly.
There was a pause while she studied him with grave, troubled eyes. "You ver' yo'ng to be a doctor," she remarked at length.
Ralph frowned in an elderly way, and bit his lip.
"Are you a good doctor?" she asked.
He laughed in his annoyance. "What am I to say to that?"
His laughter disconcerted her. "I mean a college doctor," she said sulkily.
"McGill, Bellevue," said Ralph.
"I don't know those," she said. "Have you any writings?"
Ralph stared at her. "What a question from an Indian!" he thought. He began to be aware that he was dealing with a distinct individuality, and for the first he perceived the classic beauties obscured by the grotesque outer semblance. The anatomist in him judged and approved the admirable flowing lines of her body, and the lover of beauty thrilled. One of her greatest beauties was in the graceful poise of her head on her neck. Indian women commonly have no necks to speak of. His gaze rose to her eyes and lost itself for a moment. All the Indians he had seen hitherto had hard, flat, shallow eyes; hers had depth and purpose and feeling. "Extraordinarily beautiful eyes!" he thought, with the start of a discoverer.
His good humor restored, he showed her his diplomas, following the script with a forefinger, and reading aloud.
"I can read," she said calmly.
Ralph felt rebuked.
"But that is fonny printing," she confessed.
Her next question surprised him afresh. "Can you cut?"
"Cut?" echoed Ralph, gaping a little. "You mean surgery? Yes."
"My mot'er, she break her arm," the girl explained. "I set it myself. I know that. After that I have to go away. She take off the—what do you call the sticks—?" She illustrated.
"Splints," put in Ralph.
"Yes, she take off the splints too soon, and try to work, and when I come home her arm is all crooked. All the time it grows more crookeder. She is so scare' she is sick. Can you fix it?" she asked anxiously.
"Surely!" said Ralph. "The arm must be broken again and reset."
"Broken again?" the girl said, with an alarmed look. "That hurt her bad. She not let you do that, I think. Can you put her to sleep?"
"Anæsthetic? Certainly!" said Ralph. "Where did you learn about anæsthetics?" he asked curiously.
"I have work in Prince George and Winnipeg three years," she said. "I know about a