Bransford of Rainbow Range

by Eugene Manlove Rhodes

  CHAPTER XVIII

  AT THE RAINBOW'S END

  "Helen's lips are drifting dust; Ilion is consumed with rust; All the galleons of Greece Drink the ocean's dreamless peace; Lost was Solomon's purple show Restless centuries ago; Stately empires wax and wane-- Babylon, Barbary and Spain-- Only one thing, undefaced, Lasts, though all the worlds lie waste And the heavens are overturned, --Dear, how long ago we learned!"

  --FREDERICK LAWRENCE KNOWLES.

  Starlit and moonlight leagues, the slow, fresh dawn; in the cool of themorning, Bransford came to the crest of the ground-swell known asFrenchman's Ridge, and saw low-lying Arcadia dim against the north, atoy town huddling close to the shelter of Rainbow Range; he splashedthrough the shallow waters of Alamo, failing to a trickle before it sankin the desert sands; and so came at last to the moat of Arcadia. Withwhat joyous and eager-choking heart-beat you may well guess: not theneedlessness of those swift pulses or of that joy. For Ellinor was notthere. With Mrs. Hoffman, she had gone to visit the Sutherlands atRainbow's End. And Jeff could not go on. Arcadia rose to greet him inimpromptu Roman holiday.

  Poor Bransford has never known clearly what chanced on that awful day.There is a jumbled, whirling memory of endless kaleidoscopic troops ofjoyful Arcadians: Billy White, Monte, Jimmy, Clarke, the grim-smilingsheriff, the judge. It was dimly borne upon him by one or both of thetwo last, that there were yet certain formalities to be observed in thematter of his escape from custody of the Law and of the horse he hadborrowed from the court house square. Indeed, it seemed to Jeff, in ahazy afterthought, that perhaps the sheriff had arrested him again. Ifso, it had slipped Jeff's mind, swallowed up in a gruesome horror ofcongratulations, hand-shakings, back-slappings, badinage and questions;heaped on a hero heartsick, dazed and dumb. Pleading weariness, he torehimself away at last, almost by violence, and flung himself down in adarkened bedroom of the Arcadian Atalanta.

  One thing was clear. Headlight was there, Aforesaid Smith, Madison: buthis nearest friends, Pringle, Beebe and Ballinger, though they hadhasted back to Arcadia to fight Jeff's battles, were ostentatiouslyabsent from his hollow and hateful triumph: Johnny Dines had pointedlyrefused to share his night ride from Helm's: and Jeff knew why, sadlyenough. The gods take pay for the goods they give: and now that goodlyfellowship was broken. The thought clung fast: it haunted his tossingand troubled slumbers, where Ellinor came through a sunset glow,swift-footed to meet him: where his friends rode slow and silent intothe glimmering dusk, smaller and smaller, black against the sky.

  * * * * *

  The Sutherland place made an outer corner of Rainbow's End, boweredabout by a double row of close and interlaced cottonwoods on two sides,by vigorous orchards on the other two.

  The house had once been a one-storied adobe, heroically proportioned,thick-walled, cool against summer, warm in what went by the name ofwinter. The old-time princely hospitality was unchanged, but Sutherlandhad bought lots in Arcadia of early days; and now, the old gray walls ofthe house were smooth with creamy stucco, wrought of gypsum from theWhite Sands; the windows were widened and there was a superimposedstory, overhanging, wide and low. The gables were double-windowed,shingled and stained nut-brown, the gently sloping roof shingled,dormered and soft green: the overflow projecting to broad verandas oneither side, very like an umbrella: a bungalow with two birthdays--1866: 1896.

  Miss Ellinor Hoffman had deserted veranda, rocking-chair and hammock.With a sewing basket beside her, she sat on a pine bench under acottonwood of 1867, ostensibly basting together a kimono tinted like adripping sea shell, and faced with peach-blossom.

  The work went slowly. Her seat was at the desert corner of the homesteadwhich was itself the desert outpost of a desert town: and her bloodstirred to these splendid horizons. The mysterious desert scoffed andquestioned, drew her with promise of strange joys and strange griefs.The iron-hard mountains beckoned and challenged from afar, wove hertheir spells of wavering lights and shadows; the misty warp and woof ofthem shifting to swift fantastic hues of trembling rose and blue andviolet, half-veiling, half-revealing, steeps unguessed and dreamed-ofsheltered valleys--and all the myriad-voice of moaning waste andworld-rimming hill cried "Come!"

  Faint, fitful undertone of drowsy chords, far pealing of elfin bells;that was pulsing of busy _acequias_, tinkling of mimic waterfalls. Theclean breath of the desert crooned by, bearing a grateful fragrance ofapple-blossoms near; it rippled the deepest green of alfalfa toundulating sheen of purple and flashing gold.

  The broad fields were dwarfed to play-garden prettiness by the vastnessof overwhelming desert, to right, to left, before; whose nearerblotches of black and gray and brown faded, far off, to a namelessshimmer, its silent leagues dwindling to immeasurable blur, mergingindistinguishable in the burning sunset.

  "East by up," overguarding the oasis, the colossal bulk of Rainbowwalled out the world with grim-tiered cliffs, cleft only by thedeep-gashed gates of Rainbow Pass, where the swift river broke throughto the rich fields of Rainbow's End, bringing fulfilment of the fabledpot of gold--or, unused, to shrink and fail and die in the thirsty sand.

  Below, the whilom channel wandered forlorn--Rainbow no longer, but LostRiver--to a disconsolate delta, waterless save as infrequent floodsfound turbulent way to the Sink, when wild horse and antelope revisitedtheir old haunts for the tender green luxury of these brief, belatedsprings.

  Incidentally, Miss Hoffman's outpost commanded a good view of Arcadiaroad, winding white through the black tar-brush. Had she looked, shemight have seen a slow horseman, tiny on the bare plain below thetar-brush, larger as he climbed the gentle slope along thatwhite-winding road.

  But she bent industrious to her work, smiling to herself, half-singing,half-humming a foolish and lilty little tune:

  "A tisket, a tasket--a green and yellow basket; I wrote a letter to my love and on the road I lost it-- I crissed it, I crossed it--I locked it in a casket; I missed it, I lost it----"

  And here Miss Hoffman did an unaccountable thing. Wise Penelopeunraveled by night the work she wove by day. Like her in this, MissEllinor Hoffman now placidly snipped and ripped the basting threads,unraveled them patiently, and set to work afresh.

  "Now, there's no such thing as a Ginko tree; There never was--though there ought to be. And 'tis also true, though most absurd, There's no such thing as a Wallabye bird!"

  Miss Hoffman was all in white, with a white middy blouse trimmed inscarlet, a scarlet ribbon in her dark hair: a fine-linked gold chainshowed at her neck. A very pretty picture she made, cool and freshagainst the deep shade and the green--but of course she did not know it.She held the shaping kimono at arm's length, admiring the delicatecolor, and fell to work again.

  "Oh, the jolly miller, he lives by himself! As the wheel rolls around he gathers in his pelf, A hand in the hopper and another in the bag-- As the wheel rolls around he calls out, '_Grab!_'"

  So intent and preoccupied was she, that she did not hear the approachinghorse.

  "Good evening!"

  "Oh!" Miss Hoffman jumped, dropping the long-suffering kimono. Ahorseman, with bared head, had reined up in the shaded road alongside."How silly of me not to hear you coming! If you're looking for Mr.Sutherland, he's not here--Mr. David Sutherland, that is. But Mr. HenrySutherland is here--or was awhile ago--maybe half an hour since. He wastrying to get up a set of tennis. Perhaps they're playing--over there onthe other side of the house. And yet, if they were there, we'd hear themlaughing--don't you think?"

  Mr. Bransford--for it was Mr. Bransford, and he was all dressed inclothes--waited with extreme patience for the conclusion of thesefeverish and hurried remarks.

  "But I'm not looking for Sutherland. I'm looking for you!"

  "Oh!" said Ellinor again. Then, after a long and deliberate survey, thelight of recognition dawned slowly in her eyes. "Oh, I _do_ know you,don't I? To be sure
I do! You're Mr.----the gentleman I met on RainbowMountain, near Mayhill,--Mr.--ah yes--Bransford!"

  "Why, so I am!" said Jeff, leaning on the saddle-horn. One half of Mr.Bransford wondered if he had not been making a fool of himself andtaking a great deal for granted: the other half, though considerablyalarmed, was not at all deceived.

  Miss Ellinor did not actually put her finger in the corner of hermouth--she merely looked as if she had. "Ah!--Won't you ... get down?"she said helplessly. "What a beautiful horse!"

  "Why, yes--thank you--I believe I will."

  He left the beautiful horse to stand with dangling reins, and came overto the bench, silent and rather grim.

  "Won't you sit down?" said Ellinor politely. "Fine day, isn't it?"

  "It's a wonderful day--a marvelous day--a stupendous day!" said thisexasperated young man. "No, I guess it's not worth while to sit down. Ijust wanted to find out where you lived. I asked you once before, youknow, and you didn't tell me."

  "Didn't I? Oh, do sit down! You look so grumpy--tired, I mean." Rathergrudgingly, she swept the sewing basket from the bench to the grass.

  Jeff's eyes followed the action. He saw--if you call it seeing--thesnipped threads on the grass, the yet unpicked bastings, white againstthe peach-pink facing; but he was a mere man, hardly-circumstanced, andthese eloquent tidings were wasted upon his clumsy intellect: as hadbeen the surprising good fortune of finding Miss Ellinor exactly whereshe was.

  Nerving himself with memory of the Quaker Lady at the masquerade--if,indeed, that had ever really happened--Jeff took the offered seat.

  The young lady matched two edges together, smoothed them, eyed theresult critically, and plied a nimble needle. Then she turned clear andguileless eyes on her glooming seatmate.

  "You look older, somehow, than I thought you were, now that I remember,"she observed, biting the thread. "You've been away, haven't you?"

  "Thought you were going away, yourself, so wild and fierce?" said Jeff,evading.--_Been away, indeed!_

  Ellinor threaded her needle.

  "Mamma _was_ talking of going for a while," she said tranquilly. "ButI'm rather glad we didn't. We're having a splendid time here--and Mr.White's going to take us to the White Sands next week. He'll be downto-morrow--at least I think so. He's fine! He took us to Mescalero earlyin the spring. And the young people here at Rainbow's End are simplydelightful. You must meet some of them. Listen! There they are now--Ihear them. They _are_ playing tennis. Come on up and I'll introduce you.I can finish this thing any time." She tossed the poor kimono into thebasket.

  "No," said this unhappy young man, rising. "I believe I'll go on back.Good-by, Miss Ell--Miss Hoffman. I wish you much happiness!"

  "Why--surely you're not going now? There are some nice girls here--theyhave heard so much of you, but they say they've never met you. Don'tyou want----"

  Jeff groaned, fumbling blindly at the bridle. "No, I wish I'd never seena girl!"

  "Why-y! That's not very polite, is it?----Are--are you--mad to me?" saidEllinor in a meek little voice.

  "Mad? No," said Jeff bitterly. "I'm just coming to my senses. I've beendreaming. Now I've woke up!"

  "Angry, I mean, of course. I just say it that way--'are you mad tome'--sometimes--to be--to be--nice, Mr. Bransford!"

  "You needn't bother! Good-by!"

  "But I'll see you again----"

  "_Never!_"

  "----when you're not so--cross?"

  Jeff reached for his stirrup.

  "Oh, well! If you're going to be huffy! Never it is, then, by all means!No--wait! I must give you back your present."

  "I have never given you a present. Some other man, doubtless. You shouldkeep a list!" said Jeff, with bitter and cutting scorn.

  The girl turned half away from him and hid her face with tremblinghands; her shoulders shook with emotion.

  "Look the other way, sir! Turn your head! You shall have your presentback and then if you're so anxious to go--Go!"

  "Miss Hoffman, I never gave you a present in my life," Jeff protested.

  "You did!" sobbed Ellinor. She turned upon him, stamping her foot. "Yousaid, when you gave it to me, that you hoped it would bring me goodluck. And you've forgotten! _You'd_ better keep a list! Turn your headaway, I tell you!" She sank down on the bench.

  Confused, mazed, bewildered, Jeff obeyed her.

  She sprang to her feet. She was laughing, blushing, glowing. In her handwas the little gold chain.

  "Now, you may look. Hold out your hand, sir!"

  Jeff's mind was whirling; he held out his hand. She laid a little goldlocket in his palm. It was warm, that little locket.

  "I have never seen this locket before in my life!" gasped Jeff.

  "Open it!"

  He opened it. The little eohippus glared up at him.

  "Ellinor!--_Charley Gibson!_"

  "Tobe! Jeff!--_Jamie!_"

  The little eohippus stared unwinking from the grass.

  THE BEGINNING