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Page 51
She made no answer as she rode slowly down the street. She was
thinking how, only a few weeks ago, she had heard the bells ring for
the first time, how then Galloway and Norton had been but meaningless
names to her, how she had been little moved by either the sound of
pistol-shots or the Captain's heavy tolling. Now things were
different. Just in what were they "different" and to what degree? She
could not answer her own question before she was at the hotel.
Struve came immediately, noted her pale face, attributed it to a
sleepless night, and made her take a cup of coffee. He rounded out the
information she already had from Ignacio. Norton was still unconscious
though, only a few minutes ago, Patten had reported signs of
improvement. Mrs. Engle had been with him, was still there acting
nurse; he was being given every attention possible.
Patten himself entered, drawn by the aroma of coffee. He nodded
carelessly to the girl and remarked to Struve, with a flash of triumph
in his eyes, that at last he had "brought him around." Norton was very
weak, sick, dizzy, perhaps not yet out of danger. But Patten had won
in the initial skirmish with old man Death.
At least, so Struve was given to feel. Virginia, with a quick look at
Patten's complacent face, was moved with sudden, almost insistent
longing, that Rod Norton's life might be given into her own hands
rather than remain in the pudgy hands of a man she at once disliked as
an individual and failed to admire as a physician. For she had needed
no long residence in San Juan to form her own estimate of the man's
ability . . . or lack of ability. But plainly this was Patten's case,
not hers; she got up from the table and went into her own room.
Elmer she found lying fully dressed upon a couch in her office,
sleeping heavily. She stood over him a moment, her eyes tender; he was
still, would always be, her baby brother. Then she went to her own
room and threw herself down upon her bed, worn out, anxious, vaguely
fearful for the future.
It was a long day for San Juan. Mrs. Engle came now and then to
Virginia's room to wipe her eyes and force a hopeful smile; Florrie ran
in like a young tempest to weep copiously and hyperbolically invest
poor dear Roddy with all imaginable heroic attributes; Engle and Struve
and Tom Cutter were grave-eyed and distressed. Every hour Ignacio came
to the hotel to ask quietly for news.
In his own way, it appeared that Elmer Page was as deeply concerned as
any one. It was long before he told Virginia that he had been in the
Casa Blanca when the shooting occurred; haltingly he gave her his
version of it.
"Don't you think, Elmer," suggested the girl somewhat wearily, "that
you have gotten hold of the wrong end of things here? I mean in
choosing your friends? Certainly after this you will have nothing to
do with men like Galloway and Rickard?"
Ten minutes' talk with Elmer gave her a deeper understanding of his
attitude than she had been able to guess until now. Spontaneously he
had leaned toward Kid Rickard because the Kid was a "killer" and Elmer
was a boy; in other words, because young Page's imagination made of
Rickard a truly picturesque figure. Since Rickard admired Jim Galloway
as he had never known how to admire aught else that breathed and
walked, Elmer's eyes had from the first rested approvingly upon the
massive figure of Casa Blanca's owner. That both Galloway and Rickard
were fighting against persecution, were merely individuals wronged by
the law and too fearlessly independent to submit to the high hand of
sheriff or judge, was easily implanted in the boy's mind. Yesterday
his fancies were ready to make heroes of Galloway and his crowd, to
make of Norton a meddler hiding behind the bulwark of his office, and
hounding those who were too manly to step aside for him. But now Elmer
was all at sea, no land in sight.
"A gun in each hand, Sis," he cried warmly, his cheeks flushed, as the
almost constantly recurring picture formed again in his memory. "And
if you could have only seen his eyes! Talk about hiding behind
anything . . . no sir! And him only one against Galloway and the Kid
and Nu�ez and a whole room full."
Here was Elmer's trouble drawn to the surface; he was touched with
leaping admiration for the man who lay now in the darkened room, he
couldn't admire both Norton, the sheriff, and Galloway and Rickard, the
sheriff's sworn enemies! Which way should Elmer Page turn? Virginia
very wisely held her tongue.
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