Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1913-03-18

| it! 1t was a terrible pull. Perley's
Hotel at Antelope. OF course, know
all about it. / was here last summer
for two weeks fishing"
She stretched out her hand for a
glass, across the top of which a book
rested He followed the movement
with mute fxity.
This is your medicine" she said.
taking the book of the glass. you
were to take 1t at five but didn't Ike
to wake YOU"
She dipped a spoon into the glass
and held it out to him. But the young
man felt too i'll to bother with medi-
cine and, as the spoon touched his
lips, he gave his head a slight Jerk
and the liquid was split on the coun-
terpane. She looked at it for rueful
moment. then said, IS IL with gather
ing determination.
But you must take it. l think per-
haps | gave it wrong. ought to have
lifted you up. It's easier that way
and before he could answer she
slipped her arm under his head and
raised 1t, with the other hand setting
the rim of the glass against his lips
lie swallowed a mouthful and felt her
arm sliding from behind his head. He
had haZy consciousness that a per-
fume came from her dress, and for
the first time he wondered who she
was. Wondering thus, his eyes again
followed her hand putting back the
glass, and watched it, white in the
gush of lamplight, carefully replacing
the book. Then she turned toward
him with the same slight, soft smile.
Who are you?" he said, keeping
his Followed eyes hard on her.
I'm Rose Cannon" she answered.
: Rose Cannon from San. Francisco.
"Oh, yes" with movement of com
prehension, the name striking chord
OF memory. Rose Cannon from San
Francisco, daughter of Bill Cannon.
OF course | know"
He turned his head away from her
and said dIyly and without interest:
Il thought it was some one else"
She bent down and said, speaking
slowly and clearly as though to
child:
The storm fas broken the wires.
but as soon as they are UP, papa will
send your mother word, so you needn't
worry about that. But we don't either
or us know your wife's address. If
you could tell us
She stopped. He had begun to frown
and then shut his eyes with an express
sion of WEAKNESS.
That doesn't matter" he said.
Don't bother about it. let her alone"
Again there was one OF those pauses
which seemed to him so long. He gave
a sigh and moved restlessly, and she
said:
Are your feet very painful?"
eyes, pretty bad" he answered.
What's the matter with them?"
They were frost-bitten, one partly
frozen
oh" he did not seem profoundly
interested. 1t was as if they Were
some one else's feet. only they hurt
violently enough to obtrude them
selves upon his attention. Thank
you very much" he added. ''I1l be
all right tomorrow.
He felt very tired and heard, as
in dream, the rustic of her dress as
she moved again. She said something
about supper" and MRS. Perley COM
ing" and the dark, enveloping sense
of stupor from which he had come
to life closed on him again.
Some time later on he emerged
from it and saw another woman, stout
and matronly, with sleekly parted hair.
and an apron girt about her. He
asked her, too, who she ,Was, for the
fear that he might wake and find his
wife by his bedside mingled with the
pain of his feet, to torment him and
break the vast, dead restfulness of the
torpor in which he lay
1t broke into CLEANS of interest and
returning consciousness during the
next two days. He experienced an
acuter sense of illness and pain, the
burning anguish of his feet and fe
vered misery of his body, bitten
through with cold, brought him back
to a realization of his own identity.
He heard the doctor murmuring in the
corner of threatened pneumonia" and
understood that he was the object
threatened. He began to know and
separate the strange faces that seemed
continually to be bending over him,
asking him how he felt. There was
the doctor, Perley, Bill Cannon, and
the old judge and three different WON
en-. whom he had some difficulty in
keeping from merging into one COM
posite being who was sometimes Miss
Cannon" and sometimes Mrs. Per
ley" and then again Cora"
When on the fourth day the doctor
told him that he thought he would
pull through" with no worse ailment
than a frozen foot, he had regained
enough of his original vigor and i'm
patience under restraint to express
determination to rise and Ego on" He
was in pain. mental and physical, and
the ministrations and attentions of
the satellites that so persisteptly re-
volved round his bed rasped him into
irritable moodiness.
The doctor laughed at his desire to
move on" The storm was still rag
ing and Antelope was as completely
cut of from the rest of the world as
if 1t were an uncharted island in the
unknown reaches of the Pacific.
Propping the invalid up among his pill
lows, he drew back the curtain and
let him look out through a frost
painted pane on world all sweeping
lines and skurrying eddies of white.
The drifts curled crisp edges over the
angles of roofs, ike the lips of break
ing waves. The glimpse of the little
town that the window afforded showed
it covering under snow blanket.
almost lost to sight in it's folds.
Even if your feet were all right.
you're tied here for two weeks any
way" said the doctor. dropping the
curtain. It's the biggest storm !
ever saw, ard there's an old timer
that hangs round the bar who says