“Come, little girl,” he said, softly, at last.
He arose and held out his hand. Awakened from her abstraction, she looked at him with a faint smile and eyes from which all coquetry had gone, leaving only the child.
“Come,” he repeated, “time to turn in.”
She arose dutifully. The little tent really looked inviting. The balsam bed proved luxurious, soft as feathers.
“When you are ready,” he told her, “let me know. I want to open the tent-flap for the sake of warmth.”
The soft woollen blanket was very grateful. When the flap was open, Barbara found that a second fire had been built with a backing of green logs so arranged as to reflect the heat directly into her shelter.
She was very sleepy, yet for a long time she lay awake. The noises of the woods approached mysteriously, and drew about the little camp their mystic circle. Some of them were exceedingly terrifying, but Barbara did not mind them, for he sat there, his strong, graceful figure silhouetted against the light, smoking his pipe in contemplation. Barbara watched him for a long time, until finally the firelight blurred, and the great, solemn shadows stopped dancing across the forest, and she dozed.
Hours later, as it seemed, some trifling sound awakened her. The heat still streamed gratefully into the tiny shelter; the solemn shadows still danced across the forest; the contemplative figure still stared into the embers, strongly silhouetted by the firelight. A tender compunction stole into Barbara’s tender little heart.
“The poor dear,” said she, “he has no place to sleep. He is guarding me from the dangers of the forest.” Which was quite ridiculous, as any woodsman will know.
Her drowsy eyes watched him wistfully—her mystery, her hero of romance. Again the fire blurred, again the solemn shadows paused. A last thought shaped itself in Barbara’s consciousness.
“Why, he must be very old,” she said to herself. “He must be twenty-six.”
So she fell asleep.
III
Barbara awoke to the sun and the crisp morning air and a delightful feeling that she had slept well and had not been uncomfortable at all. The flap of the tent was discreetly closed. When ready she peeped through the crack and saw Stanton bending over the fire.
In a moment he straightened and approached the tent. When within a few feet he paused. Through the hollow of his hands he cried out the long, musical, morning call of the woodsman.
“R-o-o-oll out!” he cried. The forest took up the sound in dying modulations.
For answer Barbara threw aside the tent-flap and stepped into the sun.
“Good-morning,” said she.
“Salut!” he replied. “Come and I will show you the spring.”
“I am sorry I cannot offer you a better variety for your breakfast. It is only the supper over again,” he explained, after she had returned, and had perched like a fluffy bird of paradise on the log. Her cheeks were very pink from the cold water, and her eyes were very beautiful from the dregs of dreams, and her hair very glittering from the kissing of the early sun. And, wonderful to say, she forgot to thrust out her pointed chin in the fashion so entirely adorable.
She ate with relish, for the woods-hunger was hers. Stanton said nothing. The time was pregnant with unspoken things. All the charming elements of the little episode were crystallising for them, and instinctively Barbara felt that in a few moments she would be compelled to read their meaning.
At last the man said, without stirring:
“Well, I suppose we’d better be going.”
“I suppose so,” she replied.
They sat there some time longer, staring abstractedly at the kindly green forest; then Stanton abruptly arose and began to construct his pack. The girl did not move.
“Come,” he said at last.
She arose obediently.
“Follow close behind me,” he advised.
“Yes,” said she.
They set off through the greenery. It opened silently before them. Barbara looked back. It had already closed silently behind them, shutting out the episode forever. The little camp had ceased to exist; the great, ruthless, calm forest had reclaimed its own. Nothing was left.
Nothing was left but the memory and the dream—yes, and the Beginning. Barbara knew it must be that—the Beginning. He would come to see her. She would wear the chiffon, another chiffon, altogether glorious. She would sit on the highest root of the old elm, and he would lie at her feet. Then he could tell her of the enchanted land, of the life of the winds of heaven. He would be her knight, to plunge into the wilderness on the Quest, returning always to her. The picture became at once inexpressibly dear to her.
Then she noticed that he had stopped, and was looking at her in deprecation, and was holding aside the screen of moose-maples. Beyond she could see the familiar clearing, and the smoke from the Maxwell cabin.
She had slept almost within sight of her own doorstep.
“Please forgive me,” he was saying. “I meant it only as an interesting little adventure. It has been harmless enough, surely—to you.”
His eyes were hungry. Barbara could not find words.
“Good-by,” he concluded. “Good-by. You will forgive me in time—or forget, which is much the same. Believe me, if I have offended you, my punishment is going to be severe. Good-by.”
“Good-by,” said Barbara, a little breathlessly. She had already forgotten the trick. She could think only that the forest, the unfriendly forest, was about to recall her son.
“Good-by,” he repeated again. He should have gone, but did not. The situation became strained.
“When are you coming to see me?” she inquired at length. “I shall be here two weeks yet.”
“Never,” he replied.
“What do you mean?” she asked after a moment.
“After Painted Rock, the wilderness,” he explained, almost bitterly, “the wilderness and solitude for many years—forever!”
“Don’t go until to-morrow,” she urged.
“I must.”
“Why?”
“Because I must be at Painted Rock by Friday, and to reach it I must travel fast and long.”
“And if you do not?”
“My mission fails,” he replied.
They stood there silent. Barbara dug tiny holes with the tip of her parasol.
“And that is ruin?” she asked softly, without looking up.
“I have struggled hard for many years. The result is this chance.”
“I see,” she replied, bending her head lower. “It would be a very foolish thing for you to stay, then, wouldn’t it?”
He did not reply.
“But you are going to, aren’t you?” she went on in a voice almost inaudible. “You must not go like that. I ask you to stay.”
Again the pause.
“I cannot,” he replied.
She looked up. He was standing erect and tall, his face set in the bronze lines of a resolution, his gray eyes levelled straight and steady beyond her head. Instantly her own spirit flashed.
“I think now you’d better go!” said she superbly.
They faced each other for a moment. Then Barbara dropped her head again, extending her hand.
“You do not know,” she whispered, “I have much to forgive.”
He hesitated, then touched the tips of her fingers with his lips. She did not look up. With a gesture, which she did not see, he stooped to his pack and swung into the woods.
Barbara stood motionless. Not a line of her figure stirred. Only the chiffon parasol dropped suddenly to the ground.
*
STORIES OF THE WILD LIFE
I
THE GIRL WHO GOT RATTLED
This is one of the stories of Alfred. There are many of them still floating around the West, for Alfred was in his time very well known. He was a little man, and he was bashful. That is the most that can be said against him; but he was very little and very bashful. When on horseback his legs hardly r
eached the lower body-line of his mount, and only his extreme agility enabled him to get on successfully. When on foot, strangers were inclined to call him “sonny.” In company he never advanced an opinion. If things did not go according to his ideas, he reconstructed the ideas, and made the best of it—only he could make the most efficient best of the poorest ideas of any man on the plains. His attitude was a perpetual sidling apology. It has been said that Alfred killed his men diffidently, without enthusiasm, as though loth to take the responsibility, and this in the pioneer days on the plains was either frivolous affectation, or else—Alfred. With women he was lost. Men would have staked their last ounce of dust at odds that he had never in his life made a definite assertion of fact to one of the opposite sex. When it became absolutely necessary to change a woman’s preconceived notions as to what she should do—as, for instance, discouraging her riding through quicksand—he would persuade somebody else to issue the advice. And he would cower in the background blushing his absurd little blushes at his second-hand temerity. Add to this narrow, sloping shoulders, a soft voice, and a diminutive pink-and-white face.
But Alfred could read the prairie like a book. He could ride anything, shoot accurately, was at heart afraid of nothing, and could fight like a little catamount when occasion for it really arose. Among those who knew, Alfred was considered one of the best scouts on the plains. That is why Caldwell, the capitalist, engaged him when he took his daughter out to Deadwood.
Miss Caldwell was determined to go to Deadwood. A limited experience of the lady’s sort, where they have wooden floors to the tents, towels to the tent-poles, and expert cooks to the delectation of the campers, had convinced her that “roughing it” was her favorite recreation. So, of course, Caldwell senior had, sooner or later, to take her across the plains on his annual trip. This was at the time when wagon-trains went by way of Pierre on the north, and the South Fork on the south. Incidental Indians, of homicidal tendencies and undeveloped ideas as to the propriety of doing what they were told, made things interesting occasionally, but not often. There was really no danger to a good-sized train.
The daughter had a fiancé named Allen who liked roughing it, too; so he went along. He and Miss Caldwell rigged themselves out bountifully, and prepared to enjoy the trip.
At Pierre the train of eight wagons was made up, and they were joined by Alfred and Billy Knapp. These two men were interesting, but tyrannical on one or two points—such as getting out of sight of the train, for instance. They were also deficient in reasons for their tyranny. The young people chafed, and, finding Billy Knapp either imperturbable or thick-skinned, they turned their attention to Alfred. Allen annoyed Alfred, and Miss Caldwell thoughtlessly approved of Allen. Between them they succeeded often in shocking fearfully all the little man’s finer sensibilities. If it had been a question of Allen alone, the annoyance would soon have ceased. Alfred would simply have bashfully killed him. But because of his innate courtesy, which so saturated him that his philosophy of life was thoroughly tinged by it, he was silent and inactive.
There is a great deal to recommend a plains journey at first. Later, there is nothing at all to recommend it. It has the same monotony as a voyage at sea, only there is less living room, and, instead of being carried, you must progress to a great extent by your own volition. Also the food is coarse, the water poor, and you cannot bathe. To a plainsman, or a man who has the instinct, these things are as nothing in comparison with the charm of the outdoor life, and the pleasing tingling of adventure. But woman is a creature wedded to comfort. She also has a strange instinctive desire to be entirely alone every once in a while, probably because her experiences, while not less numerous than man’s, are mainly psychical, and she needs occasionally time to get “thought up to date.” So Miss Caldwell began to get very impatient.
The afternoon of the sixth day Alfred, Miss Caldwell, and Allen rode along side by side. Alfred was telling a self-effacing story of adventure, and Miss Caldwell was listening carelessly because she had nothing else to do. Allen chaffed lazily when the fancy took him.
“I happened to have a limb broken at the time,” Alfred was observing, parenthetically, in his soft tones, “and so——”
“What kind of a limb?” asked the young Easterner, with direct brutality. He glanced with a half-humourous aside at the girl, to whom the little man had been mainly addressing himself.
Alfred hesitated, blushed, lost the thread of his tale, and finally in great confusion reined back his horse by the harsh Spanish bit. He fell to the rear of the little wagon-train, where he hung his head, and went hot and cold by turns in thinking of such an indiscretion before a lady.
The young Easterner spurred up on the right of the girl’s mount.
“He’s the queerest little fellow I ever saw!” he observed, with a laugh. “Sorry to spoil his story. Was it a good one?”
“It might have been if you hadn’t spoiled it,” answered the girl, flicking her horse’s ears mischievously. The animal danced. “What did you do it for?”
“Oh, just to see him squirm. He’ll think about that all the rest of the afternoon, and will hardly dare look you in the face next time you meet.”
“I know. Isn’t he funny? The other morning he came around the corner of the wagon and caught me with my hair down. I wish you could have seen him!”
She laughed gayly at the memory.
“Let’s get ahead of the dust,” she suggested.
They drew aside to the firm turf of the prairie and put their horses to a slow lope. Once well ahead of the canvas-covered schooners they slowed down to a walk again.
“Alfred says we’ll see them to-morrow,” said the girl.
“See what?”
“Why, the Hills! They’ll show like a dark streak, down past that butte there—what’s its name?”
“Porcupine Tail.”
“Oh, yes. And after that it’s only three days. Are you glad?”
“Are you?”
“Yes, I believe I am. This life is fun at first, but there’s a certain monotony in making your toilet where you have to duck your head because you haven’t room to raise your hands, and this barrelled water palls after a time. I think I’ll be glad to see a house again. People like camping about so long——”
“It hasn’t gone back on me yet.”
“Well, you’re a man and can do things.”
“Can’t you do things?”
“You know I can’t. What do you suppose they’d say if I were to ride out just that way for two miles? They’d have a fit.”
“Who’d have a fit? Nobody but Alfred, and I didn’t know you’d gotten afraid of him yet! I say, just let’s! We’ll have a race, and then come right back.” The young man looked boyishly eager.
“It would be nice,” she mused. They gazed into each other’s eyes like a pair of children, and laughed.
“Why shouldn’t we?” urged the young man. “I’m dead sick of staying in the moving circle of these confounded wagons. What’s the sense of it all, anyway?”
“Why, Indians, I suppose,” said the girl, doubtfully.
“Indians!” he replied, with contempt. “Indians! We haven’t seen a sign of one since we left Pierre. I don’t believe there’s one in the whole blasted country. Besides, you know what Alfred said at our last camp?”
“What did Alfred say?”
“Alfred said he hadn’t seen even a teepee-trail, and that they must be all up hunting buffalo. Besides that, you don’t imagine for a moment that your father would take you all this way to Deadwood just for a lark, if there was the slightest danger, do you?”
“I don’t know; I made him.”
She looked out over the long sweeping descent to which they were coming, and the long sweeping ascent that lay beyond. The breeze and the sun played with the prairie grasses, the breeze riffling them over, and the sun silvering their under surfaces thus exposed. It was strangely peaceful, and one almost expected to he
ar the hum of bees as in a New England orchard. In it all was no sign of life.
“We’d get lost,” she said, finally.
“Oh, no, we wouldn’t!” he asserted with all the eagerness of the amateur plainsman. “I’ve got that all figured out. You see, our train is going on a line with that butte behind us and the sun. So if we go ahead, and keep our shadows just pointing to the butte, we’ll be right in their line of march.”
He looked to her for admiration of his cleverness. She seemed convinced. She agreed, and sent him back to her wagon for some article of invented necessity. While he was gone she slipped softly over the little hill to the right, cantered rapidly over two more, and slowed down with a sigh of satisfaction. One alone could watch the directing shadow as well as two. She was free and alone. It was the one thing she had desired for the last six days of the long plains journey, and she enjoyed it now to the full. No one had seen her go. The drivers droned stupidly along, as was their wont; the occupants of the wagons slept, as was their wont; and the diminutive Alfred was hiding his blushes behind clouds of dust in the rear, as was not his wont at all. He had been severely shocked, and he might have brooded over it all the afternoon, if a discovery had not startled him to activity.
On a bare spot of the prairie he discerned the print of a hoof. It was not that of one of the train’s animals. Alfred knew this, because just to one side of it, caught under a grass-blade so cunningly that only the little scout’s eyes could have discerned it at all, was a single blue bead. Alfred rode out on the prairie to right and left, and found the hoof-prints of about thirty ponies. He pushed his hat back and wrinkled his brow, for the one thing he was looking for he could not find—the two narrow furrows made by the ends of teepee-poles dragging along on either side of the ponies. The absence of these indicated that the band was composed entirely of bucks, and bucks were likely to mean mischief.
He pushed ahead of the whole party, his eyes fixed earnestly on the ground. At the top of the hill he encountered the young Easterner. The latter looked puzzled, in a half-humourous way.
Blazed Trail Stories Page 7