Smoke Bellew

“Don’t want to see any doctors,” the woman said, in tones crisp and staccato with pain and irritation. “Go away. Good night. We don’t believe in doctors.”

Smoke pulled the latch, shoved the door open, and entered, turning up the low-flamed kerosene-lamp so that he could see. In four bunks four women ceased from groaning and sighing to stare at the intruders. Two were young, thin-faced creatures, the third was an elderly and very stout woman, and the fourth, the one whom Smoke identified by her voice, was the thinnest, frailest specimen of the human race he had ever seen. As he quickly learned, she was Laura Sibley, the seeress and professional clairvoyant who had organized the expedition in Los Angeles and led it to this death-camp on the Nordbeska. The conversation that ensued was acrimonious. Laura Sibley did not believe in doctors. Also, to add to her purgatory, she had wellnigh ceased to believe in herself.

“Why didn’t you send out for help?” Smoke asked, when she paused, breathless and exhausted, from her initial tirade. “There’s a camp at Stewart River, and eighteen days’ travel would fetch Dawson from here.”

“Why didn’t Amos Wentworth go?” she demanded, with a wrath that bordered on hysteria.

“Don’t know the gentleman,” Smoke countered. “What’s he been doing?”

“Nothing. Except that he’s the only one that hasn’t caught the scurvy. And why hasn’t he caught the scurvy? I’ll tell you. No, I won’t.” The thin lips compressed so tightly that through the emaciated transparency of them Smoke was almost convinced he could see the teeth and the roots of the teeth. “And what would have been the use? Don’t I know? I’m not a fool. Our caches are filled with every kind of fruit juice and preserved vegetables. We are better situated than any other camp in Alaska to fight scurvy. There is no prepared vegetable, fruit, and nut food we haven’t, and in plenty.”

“She’s got you there, Smoke,” Shorty exulted. “And it’s a condition, not a theory. You say vegetables cures. Here’s the vegetables, and where’s the cure?”

“There’s no explanation I can see,” Smoke acknowledged. “Yet there is no camp in Alaska like this. I’ve seen scurvy – a sprinkling of cases here and there; but I never saw a whole camp with it, nor did I ever see such terrible cases. Which is neither here nor there, Shorty. We’ve got to do what we can for these people, but first we’ve got to make camp and take care of the dogs. We’ll see you in the morning, er – Mrs. Sibley.”

“MISS Sibley,” she bridled. “And now, young man, if you come fooling around this cabin with any doctor stuff I’ll fill you full of birdshot.”

“This divine seeress is a sweet one,” Smoke chuckled, as he and Shorty felt their way back through the darkness to the empty cabin next to the one they had first entered.

It was evident that two men had lived until recently in the cabin, and the partners wondered if they weren’t the two suicides down the trail. Together they overhauled the cache and found it filled with an undreamed-of variety of canned, powdered, dried, evaporated, condensed, and desiccated foods.

“What in the name of reason do they want to go and get scurvy for?” Shorty demanded, brandishing to the light packages of egg-powder and Italian mushrooms. “And look at that! And that!” He tossed out cans of tomatoes and corn and bottles of stuffed olives. “And the divine steeress got the scurvy, too. What d’ye make of it?”

“Seeress,” Smoke corrected.

“Steeress,” Shorty reiterated. “Didn’t she steer ‘em here to this hole in the ground?”

Next morning, after daylight, Smoke encountered a man carrying a heavy sled-load of firewood. He was a little man, clean-looking and spry, who walked briskly despite the load. Smoke experienced an immediate dislike.

“What’s the matter with you?” he asked.

“Nothing,” the little man answered.

“I know that,” Smoke said. “That’s why I asked you. You’re Amos Wentworth. Now why under the sun haven’t you the scurvy like all the rest?”

“Because I’ve exercised,” came the quick reply. “There wasn’t any need for any of them to get it if they’d only got out and done something. What did they do? Growled and kicked and grouched at the cold, the long nights, the hardships, the aches and pains and everything else. They loafed in their beds until they swelled up and couldn’t leave them, that’s all. Look at me. I’ve worked. Come into my cabin.”

Smoke followed him in.

“Squint around. Clean as a whistle, eh? You bet. Everything shipshape. I wouldn’t keep those chips and shavings on the floor except for the warmth, but they’re clean chips and shavings. You ought to see the floor in some of the shacks. Pig-pens. As for me, I haven’t eaten a meal off an unwashed dish. No, sir. It meant work, and I’ve worked, and I haven’t the scurvy. You can put that in your pipe and smoke it.”

“You’ve hit the nail on the head,” Smoke admitted. “But I see you’ve only one bunk. Why so unsociable?”

“Because I like to be. It’s easier to clean up for one than two, that’s why. The lazy blanket-loafers! Do you think that I could have stood one around? No wonder they got scurvy.”

It was very convincing, but Smoke could not rid himself of his dislike of the man.

“What’s Laura Sibley got it in for you for?” he asked abruptly.

Amos Wentworth shot a quick look at him. “She’s a crank,” was the reply. “So are we all cranks, for that matter. But Heaven save me from the crank that won’t wash the dishes that he eats off of, and that’s what this crowd of cranks are like.”

A few minutes later, Smoke was talking with Laura Sibley. Supported by a stick in either hand, she had paused in hobbling by his cabin.

“What have you got it in for Wentworth for?” he asked, apropos of nothing in the conversation and with a suddenness that caught her off her guard.

Her green eyes flashed bitterly, her emaciated face for the second was convulsed with rage, and her sore lips writhed on the verge of unconsidered speech. But only a splutter of gasping, unintelligible sounds issued forth, and then, by a terrible effort, she controlled herself.

“Because he’s healthy,” she panted. “Because he hasn’t the scurvy. Because he is supremely selfish. Because he won’t lift a hand to help anybody else. Because he’d let us rot and die, as he is letting us rot and die, without lifting a finger to fetch us a pail of water or a load of firewood. That’s the kind of a brute he is. But let him beware! That’s all. Let him beware!”

Still panting and gasping, she hobbled on her way, and five minutes afterward, coming out of the cabin to feed the dogs, Smoke saw her entering Amos Wentworth’s cabin.

“Something rotten here, Shorty, something rotten,” he said, shaking his head ominously, as his partner came to the door to empty a pan of dish-water.

“Sure,” was the cheerful rejoinder. “An’ you an’ me’ll be catchin’ it yet. You’ll see.”

“I don’t mean the scurvy.”

“Oh, sure, if you mean the divine steeress. She’d rob a corpse. She’s the hungriest-lookin’ female I ever seen.”

“Exercise has kept you and me in condition, Shorty. It’s kept Wentworth in condition. You see what lack of exercise has done for the rest. Now it’s up to us to prescribe exercise for these hospital wrecks. It will be your job to see that they get it. I appoint you chief nurse.”

“What? Me?” Shorty shouted. “I resign.”

“No, you don’t. I’ll be able assistant, because it isn’t going to be any soft snap. We’ve got to make them hustle. First thing, they’ll have to bury their dead. The strongest for the burial squad; then the next strongest on the firewood squad (they’ve been lying in their blankets to save wood); and so on down the line. And spruce-tea. Mustn’t forget that. All the sour-doughs swear by it. These people have never even heard of it.”

“We sure got ourn cut out for us,” Shorty grinned. “First thing we know we’ll be full of lead.”

“And that’s our first job,” Smoke said. “Come on.”

In the next hour, each of the twenty-odd cabins was raided. All ammunition and every rifle, shotgun, and revolver was confiscated.

“Come on, you invalids,” was Shorty’s method. “Shootin’-irons – fork ‘em over. We need ‘em.”

“Who says so?” was the query at the first cabin.

“Two doctors from Dawson,” was Shorty’s answer. “An’ what they say goes. Come on. Shell out the ammunition, too.”

“What do you want them for?”

“To stand off a war-party of canned beef comin’ down the canyon. And I’m givin’ you fair warnin’ of a spruce-tea invasion. Come across.”

And this was only the beginning of the day. Men were persuaded, coaxed, bullied or dragged by main strength from their bunks and forced to dress. Smoke selected the mildest cases for the burial squad. Another squad was told off to supply the wood by which the graves were burned down into the frozen muck and gravel. Still another squad had to chop firewood and impartially supply every cabin. Those who were too weak for outdoor work were put to cleaning and scrubbing the cabins and washing clothes. One squad brought in many loads of spruce-boughs, and every stove was used for the brewing of spruce-tea.

But no matter what face Smoke and Shorty put on it, the situation was grim and serious. At least thirty fearful and impossible cases could not be taken from the beds, as the two men, with nausea and horror, learned; while one, a woman, died in Laura Sibley’s cabin. Yet strong measures were necessary.

“I don’t like to wallop a sick man,” Shorty explained, his fist doubled menacingly. “But I’d wallop his block off if it’d make him well. And what all you lazy bums needs is a wallopin’. Come on! Out of that an’ into them duds of yourn, double quick, or I’ll sure muss up the front of your face.”

All the gangs groaned, and sighed, and wept, the tears streaming and freezing down their cheeks as they toiled; and it was patent that their agony was real. The situation was desperate, and Smoke’s prescription was heroic.