CHAPTER 3. ONE TO ONE
The solitary rider stood for a moment in silhouette against the sombersky-line, his keen eyes searching the lowering clouds.
"Getting its back up for a blizzard," he muttered to himself, as hetouched his pony with the spur.
Dark, heavy billows banked in the west, piling over each other as theydrove forward. Already the advance-guard had swept the sunlight fromthe earth, except for a flutter of it that still protested near thehorizon. Scattering snowflakes were flying, and even in a few minutesthe temperature had fallen many degrees.
The rider knew the signs of old. He recognized the sudden stealthyapproach that transformed a sun-drenched, friendly plain into anunknown arctic waste. Not for nothing had he been last year one of asearch-party to find the bodies of three miners frozen to death notfifty yards from their own cabin. He understood perfectly what it meantto be caught away from shelter when the driven white pall wiped outdistance and direction; made long familiar landmarks strange, andnumbed the will to a helpless surrender. The knowledge of it was spurenough to make him ride fast while he still retained the sense ofdirection.
But silently, steadily, the storm increased, and he was forced toslacken his pace. As the blinding snow grew thick, the sound of thewind deadened, unable to penetrate the dense white wall through whichhe forced his way. The world narrowed to a space whose boundaries hecould touch with his extended hands. In this white mystery that wrappedhim, nothing was left but stinging snow, bitter cold, and the silenceof the dead.
So he thought one moment, and the next was almost flung by his swervinghorse into a vehicle that blocked the road. Its blurred outlinespresently resolved themselves into an automobile, crouched in thebottom of which was an inert huddle of humanity.
He shouted, forgetting that no voice could carry through the muffledscream of the storm. When he got no answer, he guided his horse closeto the machine and reached down to snatch away the rug already heavywith snow. To his surprise, it was a girl's despairing face that lookedup at him. She tried to rise, but fell back, her muscles too numb toserve.
"Don't leave me," she implored, stretching her, arms toward him.
He reached out and lifted her to his horse. "Are you alone?"
"Yes. He went for help when the machine broke down--before the storm,"she sobbed. He had to put his ear to her mouth to catch the words.
"Come, keep up your heart." There was that in his voice pealed like atrumpet-call to her courage.
"I'm freezing to death," she moaned.
She was exhausted and benumbed, her lips blue, her flesh gray. It wasplain to him that she had reached the limit of endurance, that she wasready to sink into the last torpor. He ripped open his overcoat andshook the snow from it, then gathered her close so that she might getthe warmth of his body. The rugs from the automobile he wrapped roundthem both.
"Courage!" he cried. "There's a miner's cabin near. Don't give up,child."
But his own courage was of the heart and will, not of the head. He hadsmall hope of reaching the hut at the entrance of Dead Man's Gulch or,if he could struggle so far, of finding it in the white swirl thatclutched at them. Near and far are words not coined for a blizzard. Hemight stagger past with safety only a dozen feet from him. He might liedown and die at the very threshold of the door. Or he might wander inan opposite direction and miss the cabin by a mile.
Yet it was not in the man to give up. He must stagger on till he couldno longer stand. He must fight so long as life was in him. He mustcrawl forward, though his forlorn hope had vanished. And he did. Whenthe worn-out horse slipped down and could not be coaxed to its feetagain, he picked up the bundle of rugs and plowed forward blindly, souland body racked, but teeth still set fast with the primal instinctnever to give up. The intense cold of the air, thick with gray siftedice, searched the warmth from his body and sapped his vitality. Hisnumbed legs doubled under him like springs. He was down and up again adozen times, but always the call of life drove him on, dragging hishelpless burden with him.
That he did find the safety of the cabin in the end was due to nowisdom on his part. He had followed unconsciously the dip of the groundthat led him into the little draw where it had been built, and by sheerluck stumbled against it. His strength was gone, but the door gave tohis weight, and he buckled across the threshold like a man helplesswith drink. He dropped to the floor, ready to sink into a stupor, buthe shook sleep from him and dragged himself to his feet. Presently hisnumb fingers found a match, a newspaper, and some wood. As soon as hehad control over his hands, he fell to chafing hers. He slipped off herdainty shoes, pathetically inadequate for such an experience, andrubbed her feet back to feeling. She had been torpid, but when theblood began to circulate, she cried out in agony at the pain.
Every inch of her bore the hall-mark of wealth. The ermine-linedmotoring-cloak, the broadcloth cut on simple lines of elegance, thequality of her lingerie and of the hosiery which incased thewonderfully small feet, all told of a padded existence from which thecares of life had been excluded. The satin flesh he massaged, to renewthe flow of the dammed blood, was soft and tender like a babe's. Quitesurely she was an exotic, the last woman in the world fitted for thehardships of this frontier country. She had none of the deep-breastedvitality of those of her sex who have fought with grim nature and won.His experience told him that a very little longer in the storm wouldhave snuffed out the wick of her life.
But he knew, too, that the danger was past. Faint tints of pink werebeginning to warm the cheeks that had been so deathly pallid. Alreadycrimson lips were offering a vivid contrast to the still, almostcolorless face.
For she was biting the little lips to try and keep back the cries ofpain that returning life wrung from her. Big tears coursed down hercheeks, and broken sobs caught her breath. She was helpless as aninfant before the searching pain that wracked her.
"I can't stand it--I can't stand it," she moaned, and in her distressstretched out her little hand for relief as a baby might to its mother.
The childlike appeal of the flinching violet eyes in the tortured facemoved him strangely. He was accounted a hard man, not without reason.His eyes were those of a gambler, cold and vigilant. It was said thathe could follow an undeviating course without relenting at the ruin andmisery wrought upon others by his operations. But the helplessloveliness of this exquisitely dainty child-woman, the sense ofintimacy bred of a common peril endured, of the strangeness of theirenvironment and of her utter dependence upon him, carried the man outof himself and away from conventions.
He stooped and gathered her into his arms, walking the floor with herand cheering her as if she had indeed been the child they both for themoment conceived her.
"You don't know how it hurts," she pleaded between sobs, looking upinto the strong face so close to hers.
"I know it must, dear. But soon it will be better. Every twinge is oneless, and shows that you are getting well. Be brave for just a fewminutes more now."
She smiled wanly through her tears. "But I'm not brave. I'm a littlecoward--and it does pain so."
"I know--I know. It is dreadful. But just a few minutes now."
"You're good to me," she said presently, simply as a little girl mighthave said it.
To neither of them did it seem strange that she should be there in hisarms, her fair head against his shoulder, nor that she should clingconvulsively to him when the fierce pain tingled unbearably. She hadreached out for the nearest help, and he gave of his strength andcourage abundantly.
Presently the prickling of the flowing blood grew less sharp. She beganto grow drowsy with warmth after the fatigue and pain. The big eyesshut, fluttered open, smiled at him, and again closed. She had fallenasleep from sheer exhaustion.
He looked down with an odd queer feeling at the small aristocratic facerelaxed upon his ann. The long lashes had drooped to the cheeks andshuttered the eyes that had met his with such confident appeal, butthey did not hide the dark rings underneath, born of the hardships shehad e
ndured. As he walked the floor with her, he lived once more theterrible struggle through which they had passed. He saw Deathstretching out icy hands for her, and as his arms unconsciouslytightened about the soft rounded body, his square jaw set and thefighting spark leaped to his eyes.
"No, by Heaven," he gave back aloud his defiance.
Troubled dreams pursued her in her sleep. She clung close to him, herarm creeping round his neck for safety. He was a man not given to finescruples, but all the best in him responded to her unconscious trust.
It was so she found herself when she awakened, stiff from her crampedposition. She slipped at once to the floor and sat there drying herlace skirts, the sweet piquancy of her childish face set out by theleaping fire-glow that lit and shadowed her delicate coloring. Outsidein the gray darkness raged the death from which he had snatched her bya miracle. Beyond--a million miles away--the world whose claim hadloosened on them was going through its routine of lies and love, ofhypocrisies and heroisms. But here were just they two, flung back tothe primordial type by the fierce battle for existence that hadencompassed them--Adam and Eve in the garden, one to one, all elseforgot, all other ties and obligations for the moment obliterated. Hadthey not struggled, heart beating against heart, with the breath ofdeath icing them, and come out alive? Was their world not contracted toa space ten feet by twelve, shut in from every other planet by anillimitable stretch of storm?
"Where should I have been if you had not found me?" she murmured, herhaunting eyes fixed on the flames.
"But I should have found you--no matter where you had been, I shouldhave found you."
The words seemed to leap from him of themselves. He was sure he had notmeant to speak them, to voice so soon the claim that seemed to him sonatural and reasonable.
She considered his words and found delight in acquiescing at once. Theunconscious demand for life, for love, of her starved soul had neverbeen gratified. But he had come to her through that fearful valley ofdeath, because he must, because it had always been meant he should.
Her lustrous eyes, big with faith, looked up and met his.
The far, wise voices of the world were storm-deadened. They cried nowarning to these drifting hearts. How should they know in that momentwhen their souls reached toward each other that the wisdom of the ageshad decreed their yearning futile?
Ridgway of Montana (Story of To-Day, in Which the Hero Is Also the Villain) Page 3