Billy Topsail, M.D.

"Of course it does! That's right! 'I'm afeared.' Billy, this is a pretty serious matter. Why should the writer of this be afraid? Eh? You think a woman wrote the letter? Well, she's afraid of something. And that something must be the sort of sickness her father has. Shake your nut, Billy. What sort of sickness could she be afraid of?"

"G-o-n-c-r-a-s. Gon-cras."

"Gon-cras. Gon-cras. Gon-cras."

"Gone," Billy suggested.

"Crazy!" cried Archie.

"Right!" said Billy.

"We've got it!" Archie exulted. "'Doctor, come quick. Pop's gone crazy. I'm afeared.' That's the message. What shall we do?"

"We can't do anything now."

"How's the ice on the Arm, Billy?"

"Movin' out. A man couldn't cross now. I barely made it."

"Will the Arm be free in the morning?"

"No; it will not. The Arm will be fit for neither foot nor punt in the morning. T' get t' Poor Luck Barrens a man would have t' skirt the Arm t' Rattle Water an' cross the stream."

"We'll have to do something, Billy. We can't leave that poor girl alone with a madman."

"We'll tell Doctor Luke – "

"Yes; but what if Doctor Luke isn't back in the morning?"

"We'll go ourselves."

Archie started.

"Go?" he inquired, blankly. "Go where? We don't know where this letter came from. It isn't signed."

"Ah, well," said Billy, "somebody in Bread-and-Butter will know. Let's turn in, Archie. If we're t' take the trail the morrow, we must have rest."

And they turned in.

CHAPTER XXXIV

In Which Archie and Billy Resolve Upon a Deed of Their Own Doing, and are Challenged by Ha-Ha Shallow of Rattle Water

Neither boy slept very much. In Samuel Jolly's spare bed (it was called a spare bed) – where they had tumbled in together – they did more talking than sleeping. And that could not be helped. It was a situation that appealed to the imagination of two chivalrous boys – a woman all alone on Poor Luck Barrens with a madman. When morning came they were up with the first peep of the light; and they were in a nervous condition of such a sort that neither would hesitate over a reckless chance if it should confront them in an attempt to help the writer of the letter of the cleft stick.

"Who is she?" Archie demanded of Samuel Jolly.

"Jinny Tulk, sir – Trapper George's daughter."

"How does she come to be at Poor Luck Barrens?"

"Trapper George has a trappin' tilt there, sir. They're both from this harbour. They goes trappin' on Poor Luck Barrens in the winter. Jinny keeps house for her pop."

"All alone?"

"Ay, sir; there's nobody livin' near."

Archie turned to Billy.

"Look here, Billy," said he, anxiously, "we've got to go. I can't bear it here – with that poor girl all alone – "

"Doctor Luke – "

"We can't wait for Doctor Luke."

"That's jus' what I was goin' t' say," said Billy. "We'll leave word for Doctor Luke that we've gone. He can follow. An' when we gets there, we can keep Trapper George quiet until Doctor Luke comes."

"When shall we start?"

"Now!"

Outbound from Bread-and-Butter, fortified with instructions, Billy Topsail and Archie Armstrong made along the shore of Skeleton Arm, by the long trail, and were halted before noon at Rattle Water. The ice had gone out of Rattle Water. At the ford the stream was deep, swift, bitter cold – manifestly impassable; and above, beyond Serpent Bend, the water of Ha-ha Shallow, which was the alternative crossing, was in a turmoil, swelling and foaming over the boulders in its wide, shallow bed.

Except where the current eddied, black, flecked with froth, Ha-ha Shallow was not deep. A man might cross – submerged somewhat above the knees, no more; but in the clinging grip and tug of the current his footing would be delicately precarious, and the issue of a misstep, a stumble, a lost balance, would be a desperate chance, with the wager heavily on grim Death.

It was perilous water – the noisy, sucking white rush of it, frothing over the boulders, and running, icy cold, in choppy, crested waves, where the channel was a bed of stones and gravel. Yet the path to the tilt at Poor Luck Barrens lay across and beyond Ha-ha Shallow of Rattle Water.

Billy Topsail and Archie Armstrong surveyed the rapids in a dubious silence.

"Hum!" Archie coughed.

Billy Topsail chuckled.

"You've no fancy for the passage?" he inquired.

"I have not. Have you?"

"I don't hanker for it, Archie. No, sir – not me!"

"Can it be done?"

"No, b'y."

"No; it can't be done," Archie declared. "You're right."

They stared at the tumultuous stream.

"Come along," said Archie, with decision, his teeth set; "we'll try that ice below again."