Page:The Keeper of the Bees.pdf/25

 And the answer was: “No. Not yet. But he is in a condition where at any minute tuberculosis might develop. There never was more fertile ground for it.”

Jamie MacFarlane sat gripping his knees and licking his dry lips and waiting to hear the verdict. It came in few words.

“Send him to Camp Kearney.”

For a minute the red of the Indian Warrior flamed before the eyes of the listening man until he could only see red. For a minute hot anger seared his body in scorching protest. He had heard them say that he was not tubercular, but that he was fine breeding ground for the dread disease. Now they were planning to send him into a place where every man either had the plague, or was so near it that he had been sent to take the risk of contracting it, as was proposed in his case. It was not fair! It was not just! He had enlisted early and eagerly. He was not a drafted man. He had fought to the limit of his power. He had taken whatever came uncomplainingly. The medals he wore attested his daring. He would march into that room and he would tell those doctors what he thought of them and their callous decision.

He tried to rise and found that he was too weak to stand on his feet, and then he heard the doctor who had read off the names voicing a protest in his behalf: “I can hardly feel that it is fair to send a man of MacFarlane’s achievements and in his fertile condition to what is admittedly a place for the tubercular.”

The other voice answered: “If a year here has left him