CHAPTER XXIV
WHAT HAPPENED AT THE LAKE
Shortly before dusk on the night following Jerkline Jo's revel inRagtown, the empty wagons of her train rumbled to the highest point inthe mountain pass and were drawn up side by side, like an artilleryorganization in "battery-front" formation, on the shores of themountain lake.
Jo's fireless cooker had been working for her throughout the trip, andwhile her bantering skinners cared for the teams and greased the greataxles in preparation for the morrow's journey, the girl made ready theevening meal.
At last supper was over, and, as was their custom, the men helped herwash the dishes. Thus the task became a short one. The men settleddown to their smoking about the crackling camp fire, and as light stillremained at this high altitude, Jo decided on a stroll along the lakeshore.
All about stood the tall peaks, their crests snow-mantled. Over thelevel lowlands about the lake the silent forests of pine and fir sweptaway on all sides. The lake, some two miles in length, lay like anopal in the palm of the mountains, flashing fiery colors that it stolefrom the sunset clouds above it.
The air was chill and quiet. Not a ripple disturbed the surface of thetranquil lake, so cold and remote. Jo buttoned her coat for warmth andtrudged on away from the camp, watching flocks of chattering mudhensand mallards that fed on a long spaghettilike growth which grew on thelake bottom and floated to the surface.
She walked for a mile before she turned. She was thinking of theprevious night, and of the banker's unexpected proposal of marriagewhen she had accepted his invitation for supper after the dance. Shehad known Dalworth only a short time, and his ardent wooing had come asa distinct surprise.
Now she had turned back toward the winking eye of the camp fire, whichthrew a brilliant dagger of light across the now dark lake. In thestream of fiery color, water fowl bobbed about grotesquely. Close athand was a grove of pines, a few trees extending down to the shore,though for the most part the land immediately about the lake was anopen, grassy meadow. She heard a slight rustling in among the pines asshe passed them.
She had not strapped on her cartridge belt and six-shooter when leavingcamp. In fact, she seldom carried the weapon, but always kept ithanging close to her hand in the wagon. Now and then she strapped iton when in Ragtown, for of late an element had been sifting in withwhich she was not familiar. It represented the riffraff from thecities--men who knew nothing of construction camps and were unaware ofthe fact that she, because of old associations and a thoroughunderstanding of frontier men and frontier life, could enter a dancehall and still be respected and absolutely safe from harm. One ofthese had put an arm about her one night, and promptly had beenrewarded with a blow on the nose; for Jo did not slap when sheadministered rebuke, but punched expertly and powerfully, as does aman. Next moment the offender had been pitched bodily into the streetby as many rough hands as could lay hold of him. Only Jo'sintervention had saved the man from being kicked into insensibility.
Once again she heard the rustling, and wished that she had her gun. Itwas only some animals, she told herself--a coon or a skunk, or perhapsa wild cat or coyote prowling about to spring upon an unsuspectingmudhen that had swam too far inshore. Still, a strange dread seizedher, and she quickened her step.
Again she heard the rustle and the sound of a soft footfall. No animalwould have produced that single, rather heavy tread. She glancedapprehensively toward the dark trees, and it seemed to her that she sawa black upright bulk move stealthily from one trunk to another.
Then two things happened at once. From the pines stealthily emergedthe figure of a man--there was no mistaking it. But in the sameinstant there came a call from close at hand:
"Jo! Jo! Where are you?"
A feeling of vast relief came over the girl as she recognized thecaressing voice of the man from Wild-cat Hill. Instantly the figure onher left faded; the blur of it became one with the shadows of the trees.
"Hiram!" she called gladly. "Here I am! Hurry!"
The sound of running feet answered her, and in a little while the bigform of Hiram Hooker reached her side.
Jo was breathing weakly. She could not remember of ever before havingbeen so near a panic or fright. What had caused the unfamiliar feelingnow was a mystery to her--unless the suggested menace in the sight ofthe dark, skulking figure had been augmented by the ghostly quietude ofthe black forest and the unfriendly solitude of the cold mountain lake.
"Oh, Hiram!" she cried. "I'm so glad you're here! Hiram--I--I believeI'm sc-scared."
How it happened neither of them knew, for all at once his powerful armswere about her, and she had crept into them as less courageous womeninstinctively seek the protection of the stronger sex. His armstightened and she pressed closer to him as if she were cold and seekingwarmth. Hiram was ablaze with love for her and exultation. He liftedher bodily from the ground, and her lips quivered against his.
"Oh, Hiram! Hiram!" she cried then as if in terror. "What am I doing?What is the matter with me? You kissed me, Hiram, and--and I let you!I must have been terribly frightened. I--I seem to have lost myreason."
"No! No! Don't say that!" begged Hiram huskily. "Jo, I love you!You love me, Jo. Say you love me."
She hid her face against his breast and said nothing, but her shouldersshook.
"Jo, say it!" he pleaded. "Don't torment me! You must love me. Youcame to my arms when trouble threatened. Tell me that you love me, Jo!"
She only trembled and shivered as if cold.
"Tell me, Jo! Don't torture me. Tell me that you love me!"
There was a stifled sob; then, in muffled tones:
"You big, blind country jake! If you don't know that I'm telling youthat with every nerve and fiber of my being, you deserve torture!"
The forest and the lake came together in Hiram's vision, then vanished.There was no lake, no trees, no sentinel peaks about them.
"But, Jo," said Hiram as they walked back slowly toward the camp, hisarm about her waist, "I can't marry you. I've got nothing--I'm onlyyour skinner. You--why, your profits every month run up into fourfigures. Oh, I wish you hadn't a cent! I wish Drummond had beaten usout!"
"What foolish talk!" she said scornfully. "What is money? I care solittle for money, Hiram. It was only to try and preserve from totalcollapse all my hard-working, indomitable, old foster father had builtup so patiently that I undertook the freighting job. I've mademoney--lots of it--and if you think you and the rest of the boyshaven't had a big share in my success you're all wrong. We'll keep onskinning them to Ragtown till the steel is laid; then I mean to dosomething handsome by the men who have been so loyal to me, and sellthe outfit. Then"--she sighed--"then something else," she finished.
"But that's neither here nor there," Hiram pointed out. "I'm pennilesscompared with you. I couldn't marry a girl who had money while I havenothing to offer her. I'm too much of a man for that. Why, everythingthat I have I owe to you--even the education I am so slowly acquiring."
"Oh, I won't listen to such talk, Hiram! Most of my money is investedin Tweet's project, anyway. We'll let him handle it, and you and Iwill continue to study and improve ourselves. Then when Tweet beginsto pay us dividends we'll travel, and----"
"On your money! Not in a thousand years!"
"You're bull-headed about a trifle, Hiram," she accused.
"Jo," he said after a thoughtful pause, "don't wear that blue silkdress and those diamonds and have your hair fixed that way any more.It--it makes me feel hollowlike."
They had almost forgotten the man in the pines, there was so much elseto think about now. Jo was almost ready to confess that she hadimagined the entire incident--that she had heard only a prowling animaland had seen the shadow of a shrub. Hiram, on his part, was tootriumphant over the thought that he, only a few months from thebackwoods of Mendocino County, had captured the heart of this splendidgirl, whom men praised and admired and swore by throughout all thedesert region.
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Still the man was stubborn. In him was a knight-errantry which forbadehim to marry a girl and profit by the rewards of her pluck, energy, andbusiness courage. If he could not make money to offer her, he must dosomething big for her, must win for her some conflict that threatenedher fortunes, must make himself worthy of her by some great service.
Hiram still kept his boyish dreams of the adventure girl who hadbeckoned him from the forests to deeds of emprise. He had found hisadventure girl, but he would not consider that he had won her yet. Helittle knew that night that his opportunity was close at hand, and thatthe shadow which the coming event had cast before it had lurked therein the lakeside pines.
The She Boss: A Western Story Page 24