by Unknown
"Hope you won't mind the smacking much. Besides, it would be somefing else if it wasn't this," he continued, mimicking a childish lisp he had never forgotten.
"Miss Lupton!"
A fugitive memory flashed across her mind. What she saw was this: a glassy sea after sunset, the cheerful life on the deck of an ocean liner, a little girl playing at--at--why, at selling stars of her own manufacture. The picture began to take form. A boy came into it, and vaguely other figures. She recalled impending punishment, intervention, two children snuggled beneath a steamer rug, and last the impulsive kiss of a little girl determined to exact the last morsel of joy before retribution fell.
"Are you that boy?" she asked, eyes wide open and burning.
"It's harder to believe you're that long-legged little fairy in white socks."
"So you knew me ... all the time ... and I didn't know you at all."
Her voice trembled. The look she flung toward him was shy and diffident. She had loved him then. She loved him now. Somehow he was infinitely nearer to her than he had been.
"Yes, I knew you. I've always known you. That's because you're a dream friend of mine. In the daytime I've had other things to think about, but at night you're a great pal of mine."
"You mean ... before ... we met again?"
"That's what I mean."
The pink surged into her cheeks. "I've dreamed about you too," she confessed with an adorable shyness. "How strange it is--to meet again after all these years."
"Not strange to me. Somehow I expected to meet you. Wasn't that in your dreams too--that some day we should meet again?"
"I was always meeting you. But--why didn't I know you?"
"I'll confess that I wouldn't have known you if it hadn't been for your name."
"You think I've changed, then?"
"No, you haven't changed. You've only grown up. You're still a little rebel. Sometimes you still think it's howwid to be a dirl."
"Only when they won't let me do things," she smiled. "And you really remember even my lisp."
"You have a faint hint of it yet sometimes when you are excited."
"I'm excited now--tremendously." She laughed to belie her words, but the note of agitation was not to be concealed. Her mouth was strangely dry and her heart had a queer uncertain beat. "Why shouldn't I be--with my baby days popping out at me like this when I thought they were dead and buried? It's ... it's the strangest thing...."
His blood too responded to a quickened beat. He could not understand the reason for it. Since he had no intention of being sentimental he was distinctly annoyed at himself. If it had been Joyce Seldon now--well, that would have been another tale.
Over the brow of a hillock appeared Lord and Lady Farquhar walking toward them. One glance told Moya that her chaperone had made up her mind to drive Jack Kilmeny from the field. The girl ran forward quickly.
"We've just found out the oddest thing, Lady Farquhar. Mr. Kilmeny and I are old friends. We met when we were children," she cried quickly.
Lady Jim looked at her husband. He cleared his throat in some embarrassment.
"Mornin', Mr. Kilmeny. If you have time I'd like to have you look over some ore samples sent from our mine."
The American smiled. He understood perfectly. "I've got all the time there is."
Moya intervened again. "First let me tell you the news. Mr. Kilmeny has been freed of all suspicion in connection with the robbery. The money has been returned and the whole thing dropped."
Farquhar's face cleared. "Glad to hear it." He emphasized his words, by adding a moment later: "By Jove, I am glad. Congratulations, Mr. Kilmeny."
His wife added hers, but there was a note of reserve in her manner. Plainly she was not fully satisfied.
Eagerly Moya turned to the young man. "May I tell all about it?"
He hesitated, then nodded shortly. "If you like."
Her voice vibrant with sympathy, Moya told the story in her ardent way. Kilmeny said nothing, but the corners of his mouth suggested amusement. Something of humorous derision in his blue eyes told Farquhar that the Coloradoan did not take the girl's admiration as his due. Rather, he seemed to regard it merely as an evidence of her young enthusiasm.
Lord Farquhar shook hands frankly with Kilmeny. "We've done you an injustice. If I had a son I would want him to have played the part you did under the same circumstances."
His wife backed him up loyally but with misgivings. The character of this young man might be cleared but that did not make him any more eligible. Her smile had in it some suggestion of the reserve of the chaperone.
"I'm glad to know the truth, Mr. Kilmeny. It does you credit. Your cousins won't be back to lunch but if you can stay----"
"I can't, Lady Farquhar. Thanks just the same. I've got to ride up into the hills to let the boys know it's all right. We'll be leaving to-morrow to go back to work."
"We go to-morrow too. I suppose this will be good-by, then." Lady Farquhar offered her hand.
Kilmeny turned last to Moya. "Good-by, neighbor."
Her eyes did not shrink as the small hand was buried for an instant in his brown palm, but the youth in her face was quenched.
"Good-by," she repeated in a colorless voice.
"Sorry I wasn't able to say good-by to my cousins and Miss Seldon. I understand you're all going up to the mines. Tell Captain Kilmeny I'll try to see him at Goldbanks and make all proper apologies for my bad manners yesterday."
Moya's face lit up. "Do you live at Goldbanks?"
"Sometimes."
He bowed and turned away.
The girl was left wondering. There had been a note of reservation in his manner when she had spoken of Goldbanks. Was there after all some mystery about him or his occupation, something he did not want them to know? Her interest was incredibly aroused.
CHAPTER XI
A BLIZZARD
Moya found in Goldbanks much to interest her. Its helter-skelter streets following the line of least resistance, its slapdash buildings, the scarred hillsides dotted with red shaft-houses beneath which straggled slate-colored dumps like long beards, were all indigenous to a life the manner of which she could only guess. Judged by her Bret Harte, the place ought to be picturesque. Perhaps it was, but Moya was given little chance to find out. At least it was interesting. Even from an outside point of view she could see that existence was reduced to the elemental. Men fought for gold against danger and privation and toil. No doubt if she could have seen their hearts they fought too for love.
Miss Seldon was frankly bored by the crude rawness of the place. One phase of it alone interested her. Of all this turbid activity Dobyans Verinder was the chief profiter. Other capitalists had an interest in the camp. Lord Farquhar held stock in the Mollie Gibson and Moya's small inheritance was invested mostly in the mine. The Kilmenys owned shares in two or three paying companies. But Verinder was far and away the largest single owner. His holdings were scattered all over the camp. In the Mollie Gibson and the Never Quit, the two biggest properties at Goldbanks, he held a controlling vote.
It was impossible for Joyce to put her nose out of the hotel without being confronted with the wealth of her suitor. This made a tremendous appeal to the imagination of the young woman. All these thousands of men were toiling to make him richer. If Verinder could have known it, the environment was a potent ally for him. In London he was a social climber, in spite of his gold; here he was a sole autocrat of the camp. As the weeks passed he began to look more possible. His wealth would give an amplitude, a spaciousness that would make the relationship tolerable. As a man of moderate means he would not have done at all, but every added million would help to reduce the intimacy of the marital tie. To a certain extent she would go her way and he his. Meanwhile, she kept him guessing. Sometimes her smiles brought him on the run. Again he was made to understand that it would be better to keep his distance.
The days grew shorter and the mornings colder. As the weeks passed the approach of winter began to push autumn
back. Once or twice there was an inch of snow in the night that melted within a few hours. The Farquhar party began to talk of getting back to London, but there was an impending consolidation of properties that held the men at Goldbanks. For a month it had been understood that they would be leaving in a few days now, but the deal on hand was of such importance that it was felt best to stay until it was effected.
One afternoon Moya and Joyce rode out from the cañon where the ugly little town lay huddled and followed the road down into the foothills. It was a day of sunshine, but back of the mountains hung a cloud that had been pushing slowly forward. In it the peaks were already lost. The great hills looked as if the knife of a Titan had sheered off their summits.
The young women came to a bit of level and cantered across the mesa in a race. They had left the road to find wild flowers for Lady Jim.
Joyce, in a flush of physical well-being, drew up from the gallop and called back in gay derision to her friend.
"Oh, you slow-pokes! We win. Don't we, Two Step?" And she patted the neck of her pony with a little gloved hand.
Moya halted beside the dainty beauty and laughed slowly, showing in two even rows the tips of small strong teeth.
"Of course you win. You're always off with a hurrah before one knows what's on. Nobody else has a chance."
The victor flashed a saucy glance at her. "I like to win. It's more fun."
"Yes, it's more fun, but----"
"But what?"
"I was thinking that it's no fun for the loser."
"That's his lookout," came the swift retort. "Nobody makes him play."
Moya did not answer. She was thinking how Joyce charged the batteries of men's emotions by the slow look of her deep eyes, by the languorous turn of her head, by the enthralment of her grace.
"I wouldn't have your conscience for worlds, Moya. I don't want to be so dreadfully proper until I'm old and ugly," Joyce continued, pouting.
"Lady Jim is always complaining because I'm not proper enough," laughed Moya. "She's forever holding you up to me as an example."
"So I am. Of course I flirt. I always shall. But I'll not come a cropper. I'll never let my flirtations interfere with business. Lady Jim knows that."
Moya looked straight at her. "Were you ever in love in your life?"
Her friend laughed to cover a faint blush. "What an enfant terrible you are, my dear! Of course I've been--hundreds of times."
"No, but--really?"
"If you mean the way they are in novels, a desperate follow-to-the-end-of-the-world, love-in-a-cottage kind--no. My emotions are quite under control, thank you. What is it you're driving at?"
"I just wondered. Look how cloudy the sky is getting. It's going to storm. We'd better be going home."
"Let's get our flowers first."
They wandered among the hills, searching for the gorgeous blossoms of fall. Not for half an hour did they remount.
"Which way for home?" Joyce asked briskly, smoothing her skirt.
Moya looked around before she answered. "I don't know. Must be over that way, don't you think?"
Joyce answered with a laugh, using a bit of American slang she had heard the day before. "Search me! Wouldn't it be jolly if we were lost?"
"How dark the sky is getting. I believe a flake of snow fell on my hand."
"Yes. There's one on my face. The road must be just around this hill."
"I daresay you're right. These hills are like peas in a pod. I can't tell one from another."
They rode around the base of the hill into a little valley formed by other hills. No sign of the road appeared.
"We're lost, Moya, They'll have to send out search parties for us. We'll get in the dreadful Sunday papers again," Joyce laughed.
An anxious little frown showed on Moya's forehead. She was not frightened, but she was beginning to get worried. A rising wind and a falling temperature were not good omens. Moreover, one of those swift changes common to the Rockies had come over the country. Out of a leaden sky snow was falling fast. Banked clouds were driving the wintry sunshine toward the horizon. It would soon be night, and if the signs were true a bitter one of storm.
"It's getting cold. We must find the road and hurry home," Joyce said.
"Yes." Moya's voice was cheerful, but her heart had sunk. An icy hand seemed to have clutched it and tightened. She had heard the dreadful things that happened during Rocky Mountain blizzards. They must find the road. They must find it.
She set herself searching for it, conscious all the time that they might be going in the wrong direction. For this unfeatured roll of hills offered no guide, no landmark that stood out from the surrounding country.
Moya covered her anxiety with laughter and small jokes, but there came a time when these did not avail, when Joyce faced the truth too--that they were lost in the desert, two helpless girls, with night upon them and a storm driving up. Somewhere, not many miles from them, lay Goldbanks. There were safety, snug electric-lighted rooms with great fires blazing from open chimneys, a thousand men who would gladly have gone into the night to look for them. But all of these might as well be a hundred leagues away, since they did not know the way home.
The big deep eyes of Joyce shone with fear. Never before in her sheltered life had she been brought close to Nature in one of her terrible moods.
From her soft round throat sobbing words leaped. "We're lost, Moya. We're going to die."
"Nonsense. Don't be a goosie," her downright friend answered sharply.
"But--what shall we do?"
Scudding clouds had leaped across the sky and wiped out the last narrow line of sunlight along the eastern horizon. Every minute it was getting colder. The wind had a bitter sting to it.
"We must find the trail," Moya replied.
"And if we don't?"
"But we shall," the Irish girl assured with a finality that lacked conviction. "You wait here. Don't move from the spot. I'm going to ride round you at a little distance. There must be a trail here somewhere."
Moya gave her pony the quirt and cantered off. Swiftly she circled, but before she had completed the circumference the snow, now falling heavily, had covered the ground and obliterated any path there might be. With a heavy heart she started to return to her friend.
Owing both to the lie of the ground and the increasing density she could not see Joyce. Thrice she called before a faint answer reached her ears. Moya rode toward the voice, stopping now and again to call and wait for a reply. Her horizon was now just beyond the nose of her pony, so that it was not until they were only a few yards apart that she saw Two Step and its rider. Both broncho and girl were sheeted with snow.
"Oh, I thought you were gone. I thought you were never coming," Joyce reproached in a wail of despair. "Did you find the road?"
"No, but I've thought of something. They say horses will find their own way home if you let them. Loosen the reins, dear."
Moya spoke with a business-like cheerfulness meant to deceive her friend. She knew it must be her part to lead. Joyce was as soft and about as competent as a kitten to face a crisis like this. She was a creature all curves and dimples, sparkling with the sunshine of life like the wavelets of a glassy sea. But there was in her an instinctive shrinking from all pain and harshness. When her little world refused to smile, as very rarely it did for her, she shut her eyes, stopped her ears, and pouted. Against the implacable condition that confronted them now she could only whimper her despair.
They waited with loose reins for the ponies to move. The storm beat upon them, confining their vision to a space within reach of their outstretched arms. Only the frightened wails of Joyce and the comforting words of her friend could be heard in the shriek of the wind. The ponies, feeling themselves free, stirred restlessly. Moya clucked to her roan and patted his neck encouragingly.
"Good old Billy. Take us home, old fellow," she urged.
Presently the horse began to move, aimlessly at first, but soon with a steadiness that suggested purpose.
Moya unloosed with her chill fingers the rope coiled to her saddle, and threw one end to her friend.
"Tie it tight to the saddle horn, Joyce--with a double knot," she ordered. "And keep your hand on it to see that it doesn't come undone."
"I can't tie it. My hands are frozen ... I'm freezing to death."
Moya made fast one end of the rope and then slipped from the saddle. The other end she tied securely to the saddle horn of her friend. She stripped from her hands the heavy riding gauntlets she wore and gave them to Joyce.
"Pull these on and your hands will be warmer. Don't give up. Sit tight and buck up. If you do we'll be all right."