CHAPTER I.
LAMONTI.
The next morning awoke with the balmy air of spring following thesunrise over the snow--a fair, soft day, with treachery back of itssmiles; for along in the afternoon the sky gathered in gray drifts, andthe weather-wise prophesied a big snow-fall.
All the morning Genesee wrote. One page after another was torn up, andit was the middle of the afternoon before he finally finished the workto his satisfaction, did it up in a flat, square package, and havingsealed it securely, called Kalitan.
"You take this to the express office at the station," he said; "get apaper for it--receipt; then go to Holland's--to the bank store; givethem this," and he handed a slip of written paper. "If they give youletter, keep it carefully--so," and he took from his shirt-pocket arubber case the size of an ordinary envelope. Evidently Kalitan hadcarried it before, for he opened a rather intricate clasp and slippedthe bit of paper into it.
"All good--not get wet," he said, picking up the larger package. "TheArrow fly down; come back how soon?"
"Send this," pointing to the package, "the first thing in the morning;then wait until night for the stage from Pacific that brings themail--may be if road is bad it will not come till next morning."
"Kalitan wait?"
"Yes, wait till the stage comes, then ask for letter, and keep your eyesopen; watch for bad whites. Klahowya!"
Watching Kalitan start off with that package, he drew a long breath ofrelief, like a man who had laid down some burden; and leaving the avenueand the camp behind, he struck out over the trail toward Hardy's, noteven stopping to saddle a horse. He was going to have a "wau-wau" withMowitza.
He had barely entered the stable door when Tillie came across the yard,with a shawl thrown over her head and looking disturbed.
"Oh, is it you, Mr. Genesee?" she said, with a little sigh ofdisappointment; "I thought it was Hen or one of the others come back.Did you meet them?"
"Yes; going up the west valley after stock."
"The west valley! Then they won't get back before dark, and I--I don'tknow what to do!" and the worried look reached utter despair as shespoke.
"What's up? I can ride after them if you say so."
"I don't know what to say. I should have told Hen at noon; but I knew itwould put him out of patience with Rachel, and I trusted to her gettingback all right; but now, if the snow sets in quickly, and it threatensto, she may get lost, and I--"
"Where is she?"
"Gone to Scot's Mountain."
An energetic expletive broke from his lips, unchecked even by thepresence of the little woman who had seemed a sort of Madonna to him inthe days a year old. The Madonna did not look much shocked. She had anidea that the occasion was a warrant for condemnation, and she feltrather guilty herself.
"One of the Kootenai tribe came here this morning, and after jabberingChinook with him, she told me Davy MacDougall was sick, and she wasgoing to ride up there. Hen was out, and she wouldn't listen to MissFred and me--just told us to keep quiet and not tell him where she was,and that she would get back for supper; so we haven't said a word; andnow the snow is coming, she may get lost."
Tillie was almost in tears; it was easy to see she was terriblyfrightened, and very remorseful for keeping Rachel's command to saynothing to Hardy.
"Did that Indian go with her?"
"No; and she started him back first, up over that hill, to be sure hewould not go over to the camp. I can't see what her idea was for that."
Genesee could--it was to prevent him from knowing she was going up intothe hills despite his caution.
"There is not a man left on the place, except Jim," continued Tillie,"or I would send them after her. But Jim does not know the short-cuttrail that I've heard Rachel speak of, and he might miss her in thehills; and--oh, dear! oh, dear!"
Genesee reached to the wooden peg where his saddle hung, and threw itacross Mowitza's back.
In a moment Tillie understood what it meant, and felt that, capable ashe might be, he was not the person she should send as guardian for ayoung girl. To be sure, he had once before filled that position, andbrought her in safety; but that was before his real character was known.
Tillie thought of what the rest would say, of what Stuart would thinkfor she had already bracketed Rachel and Stuart in her match-makingcalendar. She was between several fires of anxiety and indecision, asshe noted the quick buckling of straps and the appropriation of twoblankets from the hanging shelf above them.
"Are you--can you get someone to go for me--from the camp?" she askedhurriedly. He turned and looked at her with a smile in his eyes.
"I reckon so," he answered briefly; and then, seeing her face flushedand embarrassed, the smile died out as he felt what her thoughts were."Who do you want?" he added, leading Mowitza out and standing besideher, ready to mount.
She did not even look up. She felt exactly as she had when she told Henthat she knew she was right, and yet felt ashamed of herself.
"I thought if you could spare Kalitan--" she hesitated. "She knows him,and he has been with her so often up there, no one else would know sowell where to look for her--that is, if you could spare him," she addedhelplessly.
"The chances are that I can," he said in a business-like way; "and if Iwas you I'd just keep quiet about the trip, or else tell them she has anIndian guide--and she will have. Can you give me a bottle of brandy andsome biscuits?"
She ran into the house, and came back with them at once. He was mountedand a-waiting her.
"Kalitan has left the camp--gone over that hill;" and he motioned rathervaguely toward the ridge across the valley. "I'll just ride over andstart him from there, so he won't need to go back to camp for rations.Don't you worry; just keep quiet, and she'll come back all right withKalitan."
He turned without further words, and rode away through the soft flakesof snow that were already beginning to fall. He did not even say agood-bye; and Tillie, hedged in by her convictions and her anxiety, lethim go without even a word of thanks.
"I simply did not dare to say 'thank you' to him," she thought, as hedisappeared. And then she went into the house and eased Fred's heart andher own conscience with the statement that Kalitan, the best guideRachel could have, had gone to meet her. She made no mention of theobjectionable character who had sent Kalitan.
By the time of sunset, Scot's Mountain was smothered in the white cloudthat had closed over it so suddenly, and the snow was still fallingstraight down, and so steadily that one could not retrace steps and findtracks ten minutes after they were made. Through the banked-up masses awhite-coated unrecognizable individual plowed his way to MacDougall'sdoor, and without ceremony opened it and floundered in, carrying withhim what looked enough snow to smother a man; but his eyes were clear ofit, and a glance told him the cabin had but one occupant.
"When did she leave?" was the salutation MacDougall received, after aseparation of six weeks.
"Why, Jack, my lad!"
"Yes, that's who it is, and little time to talk. Has she been here?"
"The lass--Rachel? She has that--a sight for sore eyes--and set allthings neat and tidy for me in no time;" and he waved his hand towardthe clean-swept hearth, and the table with clean dishes, and a basketwith a loaf of new bread showing through. "But she did na stay long wi'me. The clouds were comin' up heavy, she said, and she must get homebefore the snow fell; an' it snows now?"
"Well, rather. Can't you see out?"
"I doubt na I've had a nap since she left;" and the Old man raisedhimself stiffly from the bunk. "I got none the night, for the sore paino' my back, but the lass helped me. She's a rare helpful one."
"Which trail did she take?" asked Genesee impatiently.
He saw the old man was not able to help him look for her, and did notwant to alarm him; but to stand listening to comments when every minutewas deepening the snow, and the darkness--well, it was a test to the manwaiting.
"I canna say for sure, but she spoke o' the trail through the Maplesbeing the quic
kest way home; likely she took it."
Genesee turned to the door with a gesture of despair. He had come thatway and seen no sign of her; but the trail wound above gulches where amisstep was fatal, and where a horse and rider could be buried in thedepths that day and leave no trace.
At the door he stopped and glanced at Davy MacDougall, and then aboutthe cabin.
"Are you fixed all right here in case of being snowed in?" he asked.
"I am that--for four weeks, if need be; but does it look like that out?"
"Pretty much. Good-bye, Davy;" and he walked back and held out his handto the old man, who looked at him wonderingly. Though their friendshipwas earnest, they were never demonstrative, and Genesee usually leftwith a careless klahowya!
"Why, lad--"
"I'm going to look for her, Davy. If I find her, you'll hear of it; if Idon't, tell the cursed fools at the ranch that I--that I sent a guidewho would give his life for her. Good-bye, old fellow--good-bye."
Down over the mountain he went, leading Mowitza, and breaking the pathahead of her--slow, slow work. At that rate of travel, it would bemorning before he could reach the ranch; and he must find her first.
He found he could have made more speed with snow-shoes and withoutMowitza--the snow was banking up so terribly. The valley was almostreached when a queer sound came to him through the thick veil of whitethat had turned gray with coming night.
Mowitza heard it, too, for she threw up her head and answered it with along whinny, even before her master had decided what the noise was; butit came again, and then he had no doubt it was the call of a horse, andit was somewhere on the hill above him.
He fastened Mowitza to a tree, and started up over the way he had come,stopping now and then to call, but hearing no answer--not even from thehorse, that suggested some phantom-like steed that had passed in thewhite storm.
Suddenly, close to him, he heard a sound much more human--a whistle; andin a moment he plunged in that direction, and almost stumbled over aform huddled against a fallen tree. He could not see her face. He didnot need to. She was in his arms, and she was alive. That was enough.But she lay strangely still for a live woman, and he felt in his pocketfor that whisky-flask; a little of the fiery liquor strangled her, butaroused her entirely.
"Jack?"
"Yes."
"I knew if I called long enough you would come; but I can only whispernow. You came just in time."
"How long have you been here?"
"Oh, hours, I think. I started for the gulch trail, and couldn't make itwith snow on the ground. Then I tried for the other trail, but got lostin the snow--couldn't even find the cabin. Help me up, will you? I guessI'm all right now."
She was not, quite, for she staggered woefully; and he caught herquickly to him and held her with one arm, while he fumbled for somematches with the other.
"You're a healthy-looking specimen," was the rather depreciating verdicthe gave at sight of the white, tired face. She smiled from the pillow ofhis shoulder, but did not open her eyes; then the match flickered andwent out, and he could see her no more.
"Why didn't you stay at home, as I told you to?"
"Didn't want to."
"Don't you know I'm likely to catch my death of cold tramping here afteryou?"
"No," with an intonation that sounded rather heartless; "you never catchcold."
The fact that she had not lost her old spirit, if she had her voice, wasa great point in her favor, and he had a full appreciation of it. Shewas tired out, and hoarse, but still had pluck enough to attempt thetrip to the ranch.
"We've got to make it," she decided, when the subject was broached; "wecan make it to-night as well as to-morrow, if you know the trail. Didyou say you had some biscuits? Well, I'm hungry."
"You generally are," he remarked, with a dryness in no way related tothe delight with which he got the biscuits for her and insisted on herswallowing some more of the whisky. "Are you cold?"
"No--not a bit; and that seems funny, too. If it hadn't been such asoft, warm snow, I should have been frozen."
He left her and went to find the mare, which he did without muchtrouble; and in leading her back over the little plateau he was struckwith a sense of being on familiar ground. It was such a tiny littleshelf jutting out from the mountain.
Swathed in snow as it was, and with the darkness above it, he felt soconfident that he walked straight out to where the edge should be if hewas right. Yes, there was the sudden shelving that left the little plotinaccessible from one side.
"Do you know where we are, my girl?" he asked as he rejoined her.
"Somewhere on Scot's Mountain," she hazarded; the possessive term usedby him had a way of depriving her of decided opinions.
"You're just about the same place where you watched the sun come uponce--may be you remember?"
"Yes."
He had helped her up. They stood there silent what seemed a long time;then he spoke:
"I've come here often since that time. It's been a sort of a church--onethat no one likely ever set foot in but you and me." He paused as if inhesitation; then continued: "I've wished often I could see you hereagain in the same place, just because I got so fond of it; and I don'tknow what you think of it, but this little bit of the mountain hassomething witched in it for me. I felt in the dark when my feet touchedit, and I have a fancy, after it's all over, to be brought up here andlaid where we stood that morning."
"Jack," and her other hand was reached impulsively to his, "what's thematter--what makes you speak like that now?"
"I don't know. The idea came strong to me back there, and I felt as ifyou--you--were the only one I could tell it to, for you know nearly allnow--all the bad in me, too; yet you've never been the girl to draw awayor keep back your hand if you felt I needed it. Ah, my girl, you are onein a thousand!"
He was speaking in the calmest, most dispassionate way, as if it wasquite a usual thing to indulge in dissertations of this sort, with thesnow slowly covering them. Perhaps he was right in thinking the placewitched.
"You've been a good friend to me," he continued, "whether I was near orfar--MacDougall told me things that proved it; and if my time shouldcome quick, as many a man's has in the Indian country, I believe youwould see I was brought here, where I want to be."
"You may be sure of it," she said earnestly; "but I don't like to hearyou talk like that--it isn't like you. You give me a queer, uncannyfeeling. I can't see you, and I am not sure it is Jack--nikatillikum--I am talking to at all. If you keep it up, you will have menervous."
He held her hand and drew it up to his throat, pressing his chin againstthe fingers with a movement that was as caressive as a kiss.
"Don't you be afraid," he said gently; "you are afraid of nothing else,and you must never be of me. Come, come, my girl, if we're to go, we'dbetter be getting a move on."
The prosaic suggestion seemed an interruption of his own tendencies,which were not prosaic. The girl slipped her fingers gently butdecidedly from their resting-place so near his lips, and laid her onehand on his arm.
"Yes, we must be going, or"--and he knew she was smiling, though thedarkness hid her--"or it will look as if there are two witched folks inour chapel--our white chapel--to-night. I'm glad we happened here, sincethe thought is any comfort to you; but I hope it will be many a daybefore you are brought here, instead of bringing yourself."
He took her hand, and through the white masses turned their faces downthe mountain. The mare followed meekly after. The stimulant of bread andwhisky--and more, the coming of this man, of whom she was so stubbornlyconfident--had acted as a tonic to Rachel, and she struggled throughbravely, accepting little of help, and had not once asked how he came tobe there instead of the ranchmen.
Perhaps it was because of their past association, and that one nighttogether when he had carried her in his arms; but whatever he was to theother people, he had always seemed to her a sort of guardian of thehills and all lost things.
She did not think of his pr
esence there nearly so much as she did ofthose ideas of his that seemed "uncanny." He, such a bulwark of physicalstrength, to speak like that of a grave-site! It added one more to thecontradictions she had seen in him.
Several things were in her mind to say to him, and not all of thempleasant. She had heard a little of the ideas current as to his Indiansympathies, and the doubt with which he was regarded in camp; and, whileshe defended him, she many times felt vexed that he cared so littleabout defending himself. And with the memory of the night before, andfeminine comments at the ranch after he had gone, she made an attempt tostorm his stubbornness during a short breathing-spell when they restedagainst the great bole of a tree.
"Genesee, why don't you let the other folks at the ranch, or the camp,know you as I do?" was the first break, at which he laughed shortly.
"They may know me the best of the two."
"But they don't; I know they don't; you know they don't."
"Speak for yourself," he suggested; "I'm not sure either way, and when aman can't bet on himself, it isn't fair to expect his friends to. You'vebeen the only one of them all to pin faith to me, with not a thing toprove that you had reason for it; it's just out-and-out faith, nothingelse. What they think doesn't count, nor what I've been; but if ever Iget where I can talk to you, you'll know, may be, how much a woman'sfaith can help a man when he's down. But don't you bother your head overwhat they think. If I'm any good, they'll know it sometime; if I'm not,you'll know that, too. That's enough said, isn't it? And we'd betterbreak away from here; we're about the foot of the mountain, I reckon."
Then he took possession of her hand again, and led her on in the night;and she felt that her attempt had been a failure, except that it showedhow closely he held her regard, and she was too human not to be moved bythe knowledge. Yes, he was very improper, as much so as most men, onlyit had happened to be in a way that was shocking to tenderfeet luckyenough to have families and homes as safeguards against evil. He wasvery disreputable, and, socially, a great gulf would be marked betweenthem by their friends. But in the hills, where the universe dwindled toearth, sky, and two souls, they were but man and woman; and all thepuzzling things about him that were blameful things melted away, as thesnow that fell on their faces. She felt his strong presence as a guardabout her, and without doubt or hesitation she kept pace beside him.
Once in the valley, she mounted Betty, and letting Mowitza follow, hewalked ahead himself, to break the trail--a slow, slavish task, and thejourney seemed endless. Hour after hour went by in that slowmarch--scarcely a word spoken, save when rest was necessary; and thesnow never ceased falling--a widely different journey from that othertime when he had hunted and found her.
"You have your own time finding the trail for me when I get lost," shesaid once, as he lifted her to the saddle after a short rest.
"You did the same thing for me one day, a good while ago," he answeredsimply.
The night had reached its greatest darkness, in the hours that presagethe dawn, when they crossed the last ridge, and knew that rest was atlast within comparatively easy reach. Then for the first time, Geneseespoke of his self-imposed search.
"I reckon you know I'm an Indian?" he said by way of preface.
"I don't know anything of the sort."
"But I am--a regular adopted son in the Kootenai tribe, four years old;so if they ask you if an Indian guide brought you home, you can tellthem yes. Do you see?"
"Yes, I see, but not the necessity. Why should I not tell them youbrought me?"
"May be you know, and may be you don't, that I'm not supposed to rangefar from camp. Kalitan was to go for you. Kalitan had some other work,and sent a Kootenai friend of his. The friend's name is Lamonti. Can youmind that? It means 'the mountain.' I come by it honest--it's a presentGrey Eagle made me. If they ask questions about your guide, just putthem off some way--tell them you don't know where he's gone to; and youwon't. Now, can you do that?"
"I can, of course; but I don't like to have you leave like this. Youmust be half-dead, and I--Jack, Jack, what would I have done withoutyou!"
He was so close, in the darkness, that in throwing out her hand ittouched his face, one of the trivial accidents that turn livessometimes. He caught it, pressing it to his lips, his eyes, his cheek.
"Don't speak like that, unless you want to make a crazy man of me," hemuttered. "I can't stand everything. God! girl, you'll never know, andI--can't tell you! For Christ sake, don't act as if you were afraid--theonly one who has ever had faith in me! I think that would wake up allthe devil you helped put asleep once. Here! give me your hand again,just once--just to show you trust me. I'll be worth it--I swear I will!I'll never come near you again!"
The bonds under which he had held himself so long had broken at thetouch of her hand and the impulsive tenderness of her appeal. Throughthe half sob in his wild words had burst all the repressed emotions ofdesolate days and lonely nights, and the force of them thrilled thegirl, half-stunned her, for she could not speak. A sort of terror of hisbroken, passionate speech had drawn her quickly back from him, and sheseemed to live hours in that second of indecision. All her audacity andself-possession vanished as a bulwark of straws before a flood. Herhands trembled, and a great compassion filled her for this alien bywhose side she would have to stand against the world. That certainty itmust have been that decided her, as it has decided many another woman,and ennobled many a love that otherwise would have been commonplace. Andthough her hands trembled, they trembled out toward him, and fell softlyas a benediction on his upturned face.
"I think you will come to me again," she said tremulously, as she leanedlow from the saddle and felt tears as well as kisses on her hands, "andyou are worth it now, I believe; worth more than I can give you."
A half-hour later Rachel entered the door of the ranch, and foundseveral of its occupants sleepless and awaiting some tidings of her. Inthe soft snow they had not heard her arrival until she stepped on theporch.
"I've been all night getting here," she said, glancing at the clock thattold an hour near dawn, "and I'm too tired to talk; so don't bother me.See how hoarse I am. No; Kalitan did not bring me. It was a Kootenaicalled Lamonti. I don't know where he has gone--wouldn't come in. Justkeep quiet and let me get to bed, will you?"
Told in the Hills: A Novel Page 20