The White Desert Part 3

"Why, the accident. I'm Thayer, you know--Thayer, your manager at the Empire Lake mill."

"Have I a manager?"

The thin man drew back at this and stood for a moment staring down at Houston. Then he laughed and rubbed his gnarled hands.

"I hope you've got a manager. You--you haven't fired me, have you?"

Barry turned his head wearily, as though the conversation were ended.

"I don't know what you are talking about."

"You--don't--say, you're Barry Houston, aren't you?"

"I? Am I?"

"Well, then, who are you?"

The man on the bed smiled.

"I'd like to have you tell me. I don't know myself."

"Don't you know your name?"

"Have I one?"

Thayer, wondering now, drew a hand across his forehead and stood for a moment in disconcerted silence. Again he started to frame a question, only to desist. Then, hesitatingly, he turned and walked to the door.

"Ba'tiste."

"Ah, _oui_!"

"Come in here, will you? I'm up against a funny proposition. Mr.

Houston doesn't seem to be able to remember who he is."

"Ah!" Then came the sound of heavy steps, and Barry glanced toward the door, to see framed there the gigantic form of a grinning, bearded man, his long arms hanging with the looseness of tremendous strength, his gray eyes gleaming with twinkling interest, his whole being and build that of a great, good-humored, eccentric giant. His beard was splotched with gray, as was the hair which hung in short, unbarbered strands about his ears. But the hint of age was nullified by the c.o.c.ky angle of the blue-knit cap upon his head, the blazing red of his double-breasted pearl-b.u.t.toned s.h.i.+rt, the flexible freedom of his muscles as he strode within. Beside him trotted a great gray cross-breed dog, which betokened collie and timber wolf, and which progressed step by step at his master's knee. Close to the bed they came, the great form bending, the twinkling, sharp eyes boring into those of Houston, until the younger man gave up the contest and turned his head,--to look once more upon the form of the girl, waiting wonderingly in the doorway. Then the voice came, rumbling, yet pleasant:

"He no remember, eh?"

"No. I know him all right. It's Barry Houston--I've been expecting him to drop in most any day. Of course, I haven't seen him since he was a kid out here with his father--but that doesn't make any difference. The family resemblance is there--he's got his father's eyes and mouth and nose, and his voice. But I can't get him to remember it. He can't recall anything about his fall, or his name or business. I guess the accident--"

"Eet is the--" Ba'tiste was waving one hand vaguely, then placing a finger to his forehead, in a vain struggle for a word. "Eet is the--what-you-say--"

"Amnesia." The answer had come quietly from the girl. Ba'tiste turned excitedly.

"Ah, _oui_! Eet is the amnesia. Many time I have seen it--" he waved a hand--"across the way, _ne c'est pas_? Eet is when the mind he will no work--what you say--he will not stick on the job. See--" he gesticulated now with both hands--"eet is like a wall. I see eet with the sh.e.l.l shock. Eet is all the same. The wall is knock down--eet will not hold together. Blooey--" he waved his hands--"the man he no longer remember!"

This time the stare in Barry Houston's eyes was genuine. To hear a girl of the mountains name a particular form of mental ailment, and then to further listen to that ailment described in its symptoms by a grinning, bearded giant of the woods was a bit past the comprehension of the injured man. He had half expected the girl to say "them" and "that there", though the trimness of her dress, the smoothness of her small, well-shod feet, the air of refinement which spoke even before her lips had uttered a word should have told him differently. As for the giant, Ba'tiste, with his outlandish clothing, his corduroy trousers and high-laced, hob-nailed boots, his fawning, half-breed dog, his blazing s.h.i.+rt and kippy little knit cap, the surprise was all the greater. But that surprise, it seemed, did not extend to the other listener. Thayer had bobbed his head as though in deference to an authority. When he spoke, Barry thought that he discerned a tone of enthusiasm, of hope:

"Do they ever get over it?"

"Sometime, yes. Sometime--no. Eet all depend."

"Then there isn't any time limit on a thing like this."

"No. Sometime a year--sometime a week--sometime never. It all depend.

Sometime he get a shock--something happen quick, sudden--blooey--he come back, he say 'where am I', and he be back again, same like he was before!" Ba'tiste gesticulated vigorously. Thayer moved toward the door.

"Then I guess there's nothing more for me to do, except to drop in every few days and see how he's getting along. You'll take good care of him?"

"Ah, _oui_."

"Good. Want to walk a piece down the road--with me, Medaine?"

"Of course. It's too bad, isn't it--"

Then they faded through the doorway, and Barry could hear no more. But he found himself looking after them, wondering about many things,--about the girl and her interest in Fred Thayer, and whether she too might be a part of the machinery which he felt had been set up against him; about the big, grinning Ba'tiste, who still remained in the room; who now was fumbling about with the bedclothes at the foot of the bed and--

"Ouch! Don't--don't do that!"

Barry suddenly had ceased his thoughts to jerk his feet far up under the covers, laughing and choking and striving to talk at the same time.

At the foot of the bed, Ba'tiste, his eyes twinkling more than ever, had calmly rolled back the covering and just as calmly tickled the injured man's feet. More, one long arm had outstretched again, as the giant once more reached for the sole of a foot, to tickle it, then to stand back and boom with laughter as Barry involuntarily sought to jerk the point of attack out of the way. For a fourth time he repeated the performance, followed by a fourth outburst of mirth at the recoil from the injured man. Barry frowned.

"Pardon me," he said rather caustically. "But I don't get the joke."

"Ho, ho!" and Ba'tiste turned to talk to the s.h.a.ggy dog at his side.

"_L'enfant_ feels it! _L'enfant_ feels it!"

"Feel it," grunted Houston. "Of course I feel it! I'm ticklish."

"You hear, Golemar?" Ba'tiste, contorted with merriment, pointed vaguely in the direction of the bed, "M'sieu l' n.o.body, heem is ticklis.h.!.+"

"Of course I'm ticklish. Who isn't, on the bottom of his feet?"

The statement only brought a new outburst from the giant. It nettled Houston; further, it caused him pain to be jerking constantly about the bed in an effort to evade the tickling touch of the trapper's big fingers. Once more Ba'tiste leaned forward and wiggled his fingers as if in preparation for a new a.s.sault, and once more Barry withdrew his pedal extremities to a place of safety.

"Please don't," he begged. "I--I don't know what kind of a game you're playing--and I'm perfectly willing to join in on it when I feel better--but now it hurts my arm to be bouncing around this way. Maybe this afternoon--if you've got to play these fool games--I'll feel better--"

The thunder of the other man's laugh cut him off. Ba'tiste was now, it seemed, in a perfect orgy of merriment. As though weakened by his laughter, he reeled to the wall and leaned there, his big arms hanging loosely, the tears rolling down his cheeks and disappearing in the gray beard, his face reddened, his whole form shaking with series after series of chuckles.

"You hear heem?" he gasped at the wolf-dog. "M'sieu l' n.o.body, he will play with us this afternoon! M'sieu l' Ticklefoot! That is heem, my Golemar, M'sieu l' Ticklefoot! Oh, ho--M'sieu l' Ticklefoot!"

"What in thunder is the big idea?" Barry Houston had lost his reserve now. "I want to be a good fellow--but for the love of Mike let me in on the joke. I can't get it. I don't see anything funny in lying here with a broken arm and having my feet tickled. Of course, I'm grateful to you for picking me up and all that sort of thing, but--"

Choking back the laughter, Ba'tiste returned to the foot of the bed and stood wiping the tears from his eyes.

"Pardon, _mon ami_," came seriously at last. "Old Ba'teese must have his joke. Listen, Ba'teese tell you something. You see people here today, _oui_, yes? You see, the pet.i.te Medaine? Ah, _oui_!" He cl.u.s.tered his fingers to his lips and blew a kiss toward the ceiling.

"She is the, what-you-say, fine li'l keed. She is the--_bon bebe_!

You no nev' see her before?"