by B. M. Bower
He would stare at the rock walls of the cave and remember little things he had forgotten in his roistering quest of fun. He remembered a certain wistfulness in her eyes when she was caught unawares with her gaze upon him. He remembered that never had she seemed to grudge him money—and as for clothes, he bought what he liked and never thought of the cost, and she paid the bills and never seemed to think them too large, though Jack was ashamed now at the recollection of some of them.
Why, only the week before his world had come to an end, he had said at dinner one evening that he wished he had a racing car of a certain expensive type, and his mother had done no more than lecture him mildly on the tendency of youth toward recklessness, and wonder afterwards how in the world the garage was going to be made larger without altogether destroying its symmetry and throwing it out of proportion to the rest of the place. It would make the yard look very cramped, she complained, and she should be compelled to have her row of poinsettias moved. And she very much doubted whether Jack would exercise any judgment at all about speed. Boys were so wild and rough, nowadays!
Well, poor mother! She had not been compelled to enlarge the garage; but Jack’s throat ached when he thought of that conversation. What kind of a mother would she have been, he wondered, if he had petted her a little now and then? He had an odd longing to give her a real bear-hug and rumple up her marcelled pompadour and kiss her—and see if she wouldn’t turn out to be a human-being kind of a mother, after all. He looked back and saw what a selfish, unfeeling young cub he had always been; how he had always taken, and had given nothing in return save a grudging obedience when he must, and a petty kind of deception when he might.
“Bless her heart, she’d have got me that racer and never batted an eye over the price of it,” he groaned, and turned over with his face hidden even from his bleak cave. “I was always kicking over little things that don’t amount to a whoop—and she was always handing out everything I asked for and never getting a square deal in her life.” Then, to mark more definitely the change that was taking place in Jack’s soul, he added a question that a year before would have been utterly impossible. “How do I know that dad ever gave her a square deal, either? I never saw dad since I was a kid. She’s proud as the deuce—there must be some reason—”
Once full-formed in his mind, the conviction that he had been a poor sort of a son to a mother whose life had held much bitterness grew and flourished. He had called her cold and selfish; but after all, her life was spent mostly in doing things for the betterment of others—as she interpreted the word. Showy, yes; but Jack told himself now that she certainly got away with it better than any woman he knew. And when it came to being cold and selfish, it struck Jack forcibly that he had been pretty much that way himself; that he had been just as fully occupied in playing with life as his mother had been in messing around trying to reform life. When he came to think of it, he could see that a woman of Mrs. Singleton Corey’s type might find it rather difficult to manifest tenderness toward a husky young son who stood off from her the way Jack had done. Judgment is, after all, a point of view, and Jack’s viewpoint was undergoing a radical change.
That very change added much to his misery, because it robbed him of the comfort of pitying himself. He could do nothing now but pity his mother. As he saw it now, the crime of lying to her about that Sunday’s frolic loomed blacker than the passive part he had played in the tragedy of the night. He had lied to her and thought it a joke. He had taken a car worth more than five thousand dollars—more than his young hide was worth, he told himself now—and he had driven it recklessly in the pursuit of fun that nauseated him now just to remember. Summing up that last display of ingratitude toward the mother who made his selfish life soft and easy, Jack decided that he had given her a pretty raw deal all his life, and the rawest of all on the tenth of last May.
All the while he was coaxing his fire to burn in the little rock fireplace he had built near his bed; all the while, he was whittling off a slice of frozen bear meat and broiling it over the fire for his supper, Jack was steeped in self-condemnation and in pity of his mother. More than was usual she haunted him that night. Even when he crept shivering under the bearskin and blankets, and huddled there for warmth, her face was as clear before him as Marion’s. Tears swelled his eyelids and slid down his cheeks. And when he brushed away those tears others came—since boyhood these were the first tears he had ever shed because of a poignant longing for his mother.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
HANK BROWN PROVES THAT HE CAN READ TRACKS
To begin with, Kate knew Mrs. Singleton Corey, just as well as a passably popular elocutionist may expect to know one of the recognized leaders of society and club life. Kate had recited at open meetings of the clubs over which Mrs. Singleton Corey had presided with that smiling composure which was so invulnerable to those without the favored circle. Kate had once talked with Mrs. Singleton Corey for at least five minutes, but she was not at all certain that she would be remembered the next time they met. She would like very much to be remembered, because an elocutionist’s success depends so much upon the recognition which society gives to her personality and her talents.
Now, here was Jack Corey hiding in her very dooryard, one might say; and his mother absolutely distracted over him. How could she make any claim to human sympathy for a mother’s sorrow if she withheld the message that would bring relief? She was astonished that Marion had been so thoughtless as never once to think of the terrible distress of Mrs. Singleton Corey. Of course, she had promised—but surely that did not exclude the boy’s mother from the solace of knowing where he was! That would be outrageous! Very carefully she sounded Marion upon the subject, and found her unreasonable.
“Why, Jack would murder me if I told his mother! I should say I wouldn’t tell her! Why, it was because his mother was going to be so mean about it and turn against him, that Jack ran away! He’d go back, if it wasn’t for her—he said so. He’d rather go to jail than face her. Why, if I thought for a minute that you’d take that stand, I never would have told you, Kate! Don’t you dare—” Then Marion dropped a saucer that she was wiping, and when her consternation over the mishap had subsided she awoke to the fact that Kate had dropped the subject also and had gone to read her limp little Sonnets from the Portuguese, that Marion never could see any sense in.
Marion must have had a remarkably trustful nature, else she would have been suspicious. Kate was not paying any attention to what she read. She was mentally rounding periods and coining new phrases of sympathy that should not humiliate but draw close to the writer the soul of Mrs. Singleton Corey when she read them. She was planning the letter she fully intended to write. Later that evening, when Marion was curled up in bed with a book that held her oblivious to unobtrusive deeds, such as letter-writing, Kate put the phrases and the carefully constructed sentences upon a sheet of her thickest, creamiest stationery. She did not feel in the slightest degree disloyal to Marion or to Jack. Hot-headed, selfish children, what did they know about the deeper problems of life? Of course his mother must be told. And of course, Kate was the person who could best write so difficult a letter. So she wrote it, and explained just how she came to know about Jack. But the professor was a conscientious man. He believed that the authorities should be notified at once. Jack Corey was a fugitive from the law, and to conceal the knowledge of his whereabouts would be nothing short of compounding a felony. It was thoughtful to write his mother, of course. But duty demanded that the chief of police in Los Angeles should be notified also, and as speedily as possible. By George, the case warranted telegraphing the news!
Now, it was one thing to write sympathetically to a social leader that her wayward son has been found, but it is quite another thing to turn the wayward son over to the police. Kate had not considered the moral uprightness of the professor when she showed him the letter, but she managed the difficulty very nicely. She pleaded a little, and flattered a little, and cried a good deal, and finally persuaded the
professor’s conscience to compound a felony to the extent of writing Fred instead of wiring the chief of police. Fred could notify the authorities if he chose—and Kate was wise enough to pretend that she was satisfied to leave the matter in Fred’s hands.
She thought it best, however, to add a postscript to her letter, saying that she feared for Jack’s safety, as the authorities had begun to be very inquisitive and hard to put off; but that she would do all in her power to protect the poor boy. She did not feel that it would be wise to write Fred, because the professor would think she was working against him and would be angry. Besides, she knew that it would be of no use to write Fred. He would do as he pleased anyway; he always did.
In the face of a keen wind the professor started down the mountain to leave the letters at Marston with the agent, who was very obliging and would see that they were put on the “down” train that evening.
Marion did not see any sense in his going away that day, and she told Kate so very bluntly. With the professor gone she could not meet Jack and have those broiled bear steaks, because some one had to stay with Kate. When Kate suggested that she have Jack come to the cabin with his bear steaks, she discovered that she could not do that either. She was afraid to tell Jack that Kate knew. Of course, it was all right—Kate had promised faithfully never to tell; but Jack was awfully queer, lately, and the least little thing offended him. He would refuse to see that it was the best to take Kate into the secret, because it gave Marion more freedom to do things for his comfort. He would consider that she had been tattling secrets just because she could not hold her tongue, and she resented in advance his attitude. Guiltily conscious of having betrayed him, she still believed that she had done him a real service in the betrayal.
It was a complicated and uncomfortable state of mind to be in, and Kate’s state of mind was not much more complacent. She also had broken a promise and betrayed a trust, and she also believed she had done it for the good of the betrayed. To their discomforting sense of guilt was added Marion’s disappointment at not meeting Jack, and Kate’s sprained ankle, which was as swollen and painful as a sprained ankle usually is. They began by arguing, they continued by reminding each other of past slights and injuries, they ended by speaking plain truths that were unpalatable chiefly because they were true. When the professor tramped home at sundown he walked into an atmosphere of icy silence. Kate and Marion were not on speaking terms, if you please.
The next day was cold and windy, but Marion hurried the housework in a way that made Kate sniff disgustedly, and started out to signal Jack and bring him down to their last meeting place. Flash after flash she sent that way, until the sun went altogether behind the clouds and she could signal no more. Not a glimmer of an answering twinkle could she win from the peak. The most she did was to stimulate old Mike to the point of mumbling wild harangues to the uneasy pines, the gist of which was that folks better look out how they went spyin’ around after him, an’ makin’ signs back and forth with glasses. They better look out, because he had good eyes, if Murphy didn’t have, and they couldn’t run over him and tromp on him.
He was still gesticulating like a bear fighting yellow-jackets when Marion walked past him, going up the trail. She looked at him and smiled as she went by, partly because he looked funny, waving his arms over his head like that, and partly by way of greeting. She never talked to Mike, because she could not understand anything he said. She did not consider him at all bright, so she did not pay much attention to him at any time; certainly not now, when her mind was divided between her emotions concerning Jack and her fresh quarrel with Kate.
Mike struck his axe into a log and followed her, keeping in the brush just outside the trail. His lips moved ceaselessly under his ragged, sandy mustache. Because Marion had smiled when she looked at him, he called her, among other things, a she-devil. He thought she had laughed at him because she was nearly ready to have him hanged. Marion did not look back. She was quite certain today that Kate would not follow her, and the professor was fagged from yesterday’s tramp through the snow. She hurried, fully expecting that Jack had gone down early to the meeting place and was waiting for her there.
Mike had no trouble in keeping close to her, for the wind blew strongly against her face and the pines creaked and mourned overhead, and had he called to her she would scarcely have heard him. She left the road at the top of the hill and went across to the gully where Kate had sprained her ankle. Today Marion did not trouble to choose bare ground, so she went swiftly. At the top of the gully where Jack had met her before, she stopped, her eyes inquiring of every thicket near her. She was panting from the stiff climb, and her cheeks tingled with the cold. But presently she “who-whoed” cautiously, and a figure stepped out from behind a cedar and came toward her.
“Oh, there you—oh!” she cried, and stopped short. It was not Jack Corey at all, but Hank Brown, grinning at her while he shifted his rifle from the right hand to the left.
“Guess you thought I was somebody else,” he drawled, coming up to her and putting out his hand. “Pretty cold, ain’t it? Yuh travelin’ or just goin’ somewheres?” He grinned again over the ancient witticism.
“Oh, I—I was just out for a walk,” Marion laughed uneasily. “Where are you going, Mr. Brown?”
“Me, I’m travelin’ fer my health. Guess you aim t’ git walkin’ enough, comin’ away over here, this kind of a day.”
“Why, I hike all over these mountains. It gets lonesome. I just walk and walk everywhere.”
Grinning, Hank glanced down at her feet. “Yes, I’ve seen lots of tracks up around this way, and up towards Taylor Kock. But I never thought they were made by feet as little as what yours are.”
“Why, forevermore! I suppose I ought to thank you for that. I make pretty healthy looking tracks, let me tell you. And I don’t claim all the tracks, because so many hunters come up here.”
Hank looked at her from under his slant eyebrows. “Guess they’s some that ain’t crazy about huntin’ too,” he observed shrewdly. “Feller that had the lookout last summer, guess he hangs out somewhere around here, don’t he? Must, or you wouldn’t be calling him. Got a claim, maybe.”
“Why do you think so? I go all over these hills, and I—”
“I was kinder wonderin’,” said Hank. “I guess you must know ’im purty well. I just happened to notice how clost them two sets of tracks are, over by that big tree. Like as if somebody with kinda little feet had stood around talking to a feller for quite a spell. I kinda make a study of tracks, you see—’cause I hunt a good deal. Ever study tracks?”
“Why, no—” Marion’s smile became set and superficial. “I do wish you’d teach me, Mr. Brown.”
“Well, come on over here and I’ll show yuh somethin’.” He reached over and laid his hand on her arm, and after an involuntarily shrinking, Marion thought it wisest to let it pass. Very likely he did not mean anything at all beyond eagerness to show her the tracks. Why in the world had they forgotten to be careful, she wondered. But it was hard to remember that this wilderness was not really so untrodden as it looked when she and Jack found themselves alone in some remote spot. She went fearfully, with uneasy laughter, where Hank led. They stopped beside the tree where she and Jack had talked the other day. Hank pointed down at the telltale snow.
“It’s dead easy to read tracks,” he drawled, “when they’s fresh and plain as what these are. They’s four cigarette butts, even, to show how long the feller stood here talkin’ to the girl. And behind the tree it’s all tromped up, where he waited fer her to come, most likely. You kin see where his tracks comes right out from behind the tree to the place where they stood talkin’. An’ behind the tree there ain’t no cigarette butts a-tall—an’ that’s when a feller most generally smokes—when he’s passin’ the time waitin’ fer somebody. An’ here’s a string—like as if it had been pulled offn a package an’ throwed away. An’ over there on that bush is the paper the string was tied aroun’—wind blowed it over there, I guess
.” He waded through the snow to where the paper had lodged, and picked it up. “It’s even got a pos’mark onto it,” he announced, “and part of the address. It must a’been quite a sizable package, ’cause it took foteen cents to send it from Los Angeles to Miss Marion—”
“Why, what do you know about that!” cried Marion abruptly, bringing her hands together animatedly. “All that’s left of my opera fudge that one of the girls sent me!” She took the paper and glanced at it ruefully. “I remember now—that was the time Fred was sure he’d get a—” she stopped herself and looked at him archly—“a jack-rabbit. And I said I’d come out and help him carry it home. But he didn’t have any luck at all—why, of course, I remember! Meeting the professor with the mail, and bringing the candy along to eat if we got hungry—and we did too. And Fred hid behind the tree and scared me—why, Mr. Brown, I think you’re perfectly wonderful, to figure that all out just from the tracks! I should think you’d be a detective. I’m sure there isn’t a detective in the country that could beat you—really, they are stupid alongside of such work as this. But I hope the tracks won’t tell you what Fred said about not getting the—er—the rabbit he shot at!” She laughed up into his face. “You might tell,” she accused him playfully, “and get us all into trouble. I’m awfully afraid of you, Mr. Brown. I am really.”
Hank Brown could read tracks fairly well, but he could not read women at all. His puzzled gaze went from Marion’s laughing face to the tracks in the snow; from there to the paper in his hand; to the tree, and back again to her face.
“The man’s tracks went back towards Taylor Rock,” he drawled out half apologetically. “That’s what made me kinda think maybe—”
“Oh, you know that, too! You know how he said he was going up there and see if he couldn’t run across a bear before sundown, and for me to go straight home. And I’ll bet,” she added breathlessly, “you can tell me exactly where it was that Kate waited for me across the gulley, and which ankle it was that she sprained so I had to almost carry her back to the house, and—why, I wouldn’t be one bit surprised if you could tell me what I put on it!”