"We can give Dan a note to 'Happy Tom' in the morning and have whatever
you want sent up. Tom will be there, and perhaps if you ask him he'll
despatch a man on foot at once."
Seizing pen and paper from the table, Eliza wrote a note, which she
read aloud:
"DEAR UNCLE TOM,--There is a sick Indian here. Won't you please send up
an opiate by special messenger, and receive the blessing of, Your
affectionate, ELIZA."
"Better change the word 'opiate,'" O'Neil advised. "I don't think Tom
is equal to that; he might send overalls!" So Eliza substituted
"something to put him to sleep." This message Dan promised faithfully
to deliver.
Murray had expected to begin the return journey within twenty-four
hours after his arrival; but his injury mended slowly, and when the
time came he was still unable to stand. This interval the girls spent
in watching the glaciers, of which they never seemed to tire, and in
spoiling many films.
It was late on the second day when a tired and sodden messenger bearing
the marks of heavy travel appeared at O'Neil's tent and inquired for
Miss Appleton. To her he handed a three-foot bundle and a note from Tom
Slater which read:
DEAR MADAM,--Here is the best thing I know of to put an Indian to
sleep. THOS. SLATER.
"There's some mistake, surely," said the girl, as she unrolled the
odd-looking package; then she cried out angrily, and O'Neil burst into
laughter. For inside the many wrappings was a pick-handle.
Eliza's resentment at "Happy Tom's" unsympathetic sense of humor was
tempered in a measure by the fact that the patient had taken a turn for
the better and really needed no further medical attention. But she was
not accustomed to practical jokes, and she vowed to make Tom's life
miserable if ever the occasion offered.
As the days wore on and Murray remained helpless his impatience became
acute, and on the fourth morning he determined to leave, at whatever
cost in pain or danger to the injury. He gave orders, therefore, to
have a boat prepared, and allowed himself to be carried to it. The
foreman of the bridge crew he delegated to guide the girls down across
the moraine, where he promised to pick them up. The men who had come
with him he sent on to the cataract where Dan had been.
"Aren't you coming with us?" asked Natalie, when they found him seated
in the skiff with an oarsman.
"It's rough going. I'd have to be carried, so I prefer this," he told
them.
"Then we'll go with you," Eliza promptly declared.
Natalie paled and shook her dark head. "Is it safe?" she ventured.
"No, it isn't! Run along now! I'll be down there waiting, when you
arrive."
"If it's safe enough for you, it's safe enough for us," said Eliza.
Climbing into the boat, she plumped herself down with a look which
seemed to defy any power to remove her. Her blue eyes met O'Neil's gray
ones with an expression he had never seen in them until this moment.
"Nonsense, child!" he said. "Don't be silly."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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