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As the physician passed him Adler stood up and saluted: "Is he doing any better now, sir?" he whispered. "Nothing new," returned the other brusquely. "He may get well in three weeks' time or he may die before midnight; so there you are. You know as much about it as I do. Damn that dog!" He trod upon Kamiska, who forbore heroically to yelp, and went on his way.
But, for all that, Lloyd saw Adler from time to time, Kamiska invariably at his heels.
One morning, a day or so after Hattie Campbell had returned to the City, just as Lloyd and Bennett were finishing their breakfast in the now heavily awninged glass-room, they were surprised to see Adler running down the road toward the house, Kamiska racing on ahead, barking excitedly. Adler had gone into the town for the mail and morning's paper.
As he turned to re-enter the tent after reading the wind-gauge he noted that Kamiska, their one remaining dog, had come back, and was sitting on a projection of ice a little distance away, uncertain as to her reception after her absence. Bennett was persuaded that Kamiska had not run away. Of all the Ostiaks she had been the most faithful.
Adler dozed in his canvas hammock slung between a hitching-post and a crab-apple tree in the shade behind the stable. Kamiska sprawled at full length underneath the water-trough, her tongue lolling, panting incessantly. An immeasurable Sunday stillness seemed to hang suspended in the atmosphere a drowsy, numbing hush. There was no thought of the passing of time.
Maybe I ain't glad to see you, sir I thought you had gone away I didn't know where I I didn't know as I was ever going to see you again." Kamiska herself had been no less tremulously glad to see Adler than was Adler to see Bennett. He stammered, he confused himself, he shifted his weight from one foot to the other, his eyes danced, he laughed and choked, he dropped his cap.
Kamiska could be killed; life could be prolonged a day or two, perhaps three, while the strongest man of the party, carrying the greater portion of the dog meat on his shoulders, could push forward and, perhaps, after all, reach Kolyuchin Bay and the Chuckch settlements and return with aid. But who could go?
Such supper as Bennett could eat was served according to his orders in the breakfast-room. Afterward he called Kamiska, and went for a long walk over the country roads in a direction away from the town, proceeding slowly, his hands clasped behind his back. Later, toward ten o'clock, he returned.
Lloyd, in the meantime, was busy in the garden at the side of the house, gathering flowers which she intended to put in a huge china bowl in Bennett's room. While she was thus occupied Adler, followed by Kamiska, came up. Adler pulled off his cap. "I beg pardon, Miss," he began, turning his cap about between his fingers.
But as the doctor was groping his way down the darkened stairway he stumbled against Adler and Kamiska.
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