CHAPTER XIV
A TOUR OF INSPECTION
The first thing necessary, she decided, when she had satisfied herhunger and finished her meal, was to get word of her plight and herresting place to her uncle and the men of the party; and the next thingwas to get away, where she would never see this man again and perhaps beable to forget what had transpired--yet there was a strange pang of painin her heart at that thought!
No man on earth had ever so stimulated her curiosity as this one. Whowas he? Why was he there? Who was the woman whose picture he had soquickly taken from her gaze? Why had so splendid a man buried himselfalone in that wilderness? These reflections were presently interruptedby the reappearance of the man himself.
"Have you finished?" he asked unceremoniously, standing in the doorwayas he spoke.
"Yes, thank you, and it was very good indeed."
Dismissing this politeness with a wave of his hand but taking no othernotice, he spoke again.
"If you will tell me your name--"
"Maitland, Enid Maitland."
"Miss Maitland?"
The girl nodded.
"And where you came from, I will endeavor to find your party and seewhat can be done to restore you to them."
"We were camped down that canyon at a place where another brook, a largeone, flows into it, several miles I should think below the placewhere--"
She was going to say "where you found me," but the thought of the way inwhich he had found her rushed over her again; and this time with hisglance directly upon her, although it was as cold and dispassionate andindifferent as a man's look could well be, the recollection of themeeting to which she had been about to allude rushed over her with anaccompanying wave of color which heightened her beauty as it covered herwith shame.
She could not realize that beneath his mask of indifference sodeliberately worn, the man was as agitated as she, not so much at theremembrance of anything that had transpired, but at the sight, thesplendid picture, of the woman as she stood, there in the little cabinthen. It seemed to him as if she gathered up in her own person all theradiance and light and beauty, all the purity and freshness andsplendor of the morning, to shine and dazzle in his face. As shehesitated in confusion, perhaps comprehending its causes he helped outher lame and halting sentence.
"I know the canyon well," he said. "I think I know the place to which yourefer; is it just about where the river makes an enormous bend uponitself?"
"Yes, that is it. In that clearing we have been camped for ten days. Myuncle must be crazy with anxiety to know what has become of me and--"
The man interposed.
"I will go there directly," he said. "It is now half after ten. Thatplace is about seven miles or more from here across the range, fifteenor twenty by the river; I shall be back by nightfall. The cabin is yourown."
He turned away without another word.
"Wait," said the woman, "I am afraid to stay here."
She had been fearless enough before in these mountains but her recentexperiences had somehow unsettled her nerves.
"There is nothing on earth to hurt you, I think," returned the man."There isn't a human being, so far as I know, in these mountains."
"Except my uncle's party."
He nodded.
"But there might be another--bear," she added desperately, forcingherself.
"Not likely, and they wouldn't come here if there were any. That's thefirst grizzly I have seen in years," he went on unconcernedly,studiously looking away from her, not to add to her confusion at theremembrance of that awful episode which would obtrude itself on everyoccasion. "You can use a rifle or gun?"
She nodded; he stepped over to the wall and took down the Winchesterwhich he handed her.
"This one is ready for service, and you will find a revolver on theshelf. There is only one possible way of access to this cabin, that'sdown those rock stairs; one man, one woman, a child even, with theseweapons could hold it against an army."
"Couldn't I go with you?"
"On that foot?"
Enid pressed her wounded foot upon the ground; it was not so painfulwhen resting, but she found she could not walk a step on it withoutgreat suffering.
"I might carry you part of the way," said the man. "I carried you lastnight, but it would be impossible, all of it."
"Promise me that you will be back by nightfall with Uncle Bob and--"
"I shall be back by nightfall, but I can't promise that I will bringanybody with me."
"You mean?"
"You saw what the cloud burst nearly did for you," was the quick answer."If they did not get out of that pocket there is nothing left of themnow."
"But they must have escaped," persisted the girl, fighting down heralarm at this blunt statement of possible peril. "Besides, Uncle Robertand most of the rest were climbing one of the peaks and--"
"They will be all right then, but if I am to find the place and tellthem your story, I must go now."
He turned and without another word or a backward glance scrambled downthe hill. The girl limped to the brink of the cliff over which he hadplunged and stared after him. She watched him as long as she could seehim until he was lost among the trees. If she had anybody else to dependupon she would certainly have felt differently toward him. When UncleRobert and her Aunt and the children and old Kirkby and the restsurrounded her again she could hate that man in spite of all he had donefor her, but now, as she stared after him determinedly making his waydown the mountain and through the trees, it was with difficulty shecould restrain herself from calling him back.
The silence was most oppressive, the loneliness was frightful; she hadbeen alone before in these mountains, but from choice; now the fact thatthere was no escape from them made the sensation a very different one.
She sat down and brooded over her situation until she felt that if shedid not do something and in some way divert her thoughts she would breakdown again. He had said that the cabin and its contents were hers. Sheresolved to inspect them more closely. She hobbled back into the greatroom and looked about her again. There was nothing that demanded carefulscrutiny; she wasn't quite sure whether she was within the proprietiesor not, but she seized the oldest and most worn of the volumes on theshelf. It was a text book on mining and metallurgy she observed, andopening it at the fly leaf, across the page she saw written in a firmvigorous masculine hand a name, "William Berkeley Newbold," and beneaththese words, "Thayer Hall, Harvard," and a date some seven years back.
The owner of that book, whether the present possessor or not, had been acollege man. Say that he had graduated at twenty-one or twenty-two, hewould be twenty-eight or twenty-nine years old now, but if so, why thatwhite hair? Perhaps though the book did not belong to the man of thecabin.
She turned to other books on the shelf. Many of them were technicalbooks which she had sufficient general culture to realize could be onlyavailable to a man highly educated and a special student of mines andmining--a mining engineer, she decided, with a glance at thoseinstruments and appliances of a scientific character plainly, but ofwhose actual use she was ignorant.
A rapid inspection of the other books confirmed her in the conclusionthat the man of the mountains was indeed the owner of the collection.There were a few well worn volumes of poetry and essays. A Bible,Shakespeare, Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus, Tennyson, Keats, a smalldictionary, a compendious encyclopedia, just the books, she thought,smiling at her conceit, that a man of education and culture would wantto have upon a desert island where his supply of literature would belimited.
The old ones were autographed as the first book she had looked in;others, newer editions to the little library if she could judge by theircondition, were unsigned.
Into the corner cupboard and the drawers of course she did not look.There was nothing else in the room to attract her attention, save somepiles of manuscript neatly arranged on one of the shelves, each onecovered with a square of board and kept in place by pieces of glisteningquartz. There were four of these
piles and another half the size of thefirst four on the table. These of course she did not examine, furtherthan to note that the writing was in the same bold free hand as thesignature in the books. If she had been an expert she might have deducedmuch from the writing; as it was she fancied it was strong, direct,manly.
Having completed her inspection of this room, she opened the door andwent into the other; it was smaller and less inviting. It had only onewindow and a door opening outside. There was a cook stove here andshelves with cooking utensils and granite ware, and more rude boxreceptacles on the walls which were filled with a bountiful and wellselected store of canned goods and provisions of various kinds. This wasevidently the kitchen, supply room, china closet. She saw no sign of abed in it and wondered where and how the man had spent the night.
By rights her mind should have been filled with her uncle and his partyand in their alarm she should have shared, but she was so extremelycomfortable, except for her foot, which did not greatly trouble her solong as she kept it quiet, that she felt a certain degree of contentmentnot to say happiness. The Adventure was so romantic and thrilling--savefor those awful moments in the pool--especially to the soul of aconventional woman who had been brought up in the most humdrum andstereotyped fashion of the earth's ways, and with never an opportunityfor the development of the spirit of romance which all of us exhibitsome time in our life and which thank God some of us never lose, thatshe found herself reveling in it.
She lost herself in pleasing imaginations of the tales of her adventuresthat she could tell when she got back to her uncle and when she gotfurther back to staid old Philadelphia. How shocked everybody would bewith it all there! Of course she resolved that she would never mentionone episode of that terrible day, and she had somehow absoluteconfidence that this man, in spite of his grim, gruff taciturnity, whohad shown himself so exceedingly considerate of her feelings would nevermention it either.
She had so much food for thought, that not even in the late afternoon ofthe long day, could she force her mind to the printed pages of the bookshe had taken at random from the shelf which lay open before her, whereshe sat in the sun, her head covered by an old "Stetson" that she hadventured to appropriate. She had dragged a bear skin out on the rocks inthe sun and sat curled up on it half reclining against a boulderwatching the trail, the Winchester by her side. She had eaten so late abreakfast that she had made a rather frugal lunch out of whatever hadtaken her fancy in the store room, and she was waiting most anxiouslynow for the return of the man.
The season was late and the sun sank behind the peaks quite early in theafternoon, and it grew dark and chill long before the shadows fell uponthe dwellers of the lowlands.
Enid drew the bear skin around her and waited with an ever growingapprehension. If she should be compelled to spend the night alone inthat cabin, she felt that she could not endure it. She was never so gladof anything in her life as when she saw him suddenly break out of thewoods and start up the steep trail, and for a moment her gladness wasnot tempered by the fact, which she was presently to realize with greatdismay, that as he had gone, so he now returned, alone.
The Chalice Of Courage: A Romance of Colorado Page 18