CHAPTER V
A NIGHT RIDE
It was a wonderful night that the two spent wading the sea of moonlighttogether on the plain. The almost unearthly beauty of the scene grew uponthem. They had none of the loneliness that had possessed each the nightbefore, and might now discover all the wonders of the way.
Early in the way they came upon a prairie-dogs' village, and the man wouldhave lingered watching with curiosity, had not the girl urged him on. Itwas the time of night when she had started to run away, and the sameapprehension that filled her then came upon her with the evening. Shelonged to be out of the land which held the man she feared. She wouldrather bury herself in the earth and smother to death than be caught byhim. But, as they rode on, she told her companion much of the habits ofthe curious little creatures they had seen; and then, as the night settleddown upon them, she pointed out the dark, stealing creatures that slippedfrom their way now and then, or gleamed with a fearsome green eye fromsome temporary refuge.
At first the cold shivers kept running up and down the young man as herealized that here before him in the sage-brush was a real live animalabout which he had read so much, and which he had come out bravely tohunt. He kept his hand upon his revolver, and was constantly on the alert,nervously looking behind lest a troop of coyotes or wolves should bequietly stealing upon him. But, as the girl talked fearlessly of them inmuch the same way as we talk of a neighbor's fierce dog, he grew graduallycalmer, and was able to watch a dark, velvet-footed moving object aheadwithout starting.
By and by he pointed to the heavens, and talked of the stars. Did she knowthat constellation? No? Then he explained. Such and such stars were somany miles from the earth. He told their names, and a bit of mythologyconnected with the name, and then went on to speak of the moon, and thepossibility of its once having been inhabited.
The girl listened amazed. She knew certain stars as landmarks, tellingeast from west and north from south; and she had often watched them one byone coming out, and counted them her friends; but that they were worlds,and that the inhabitants of this earth knew anything whatever about theheavenly bodies, she had never heard. Question after question she pliedhim with, some of them showing extraordinary intelligence and thought, andothers showing deeper ignorance than a little child in our kindergartenswould show.
He wondered more and more as their talk went on. He grew deeply interestedin unfolding the wonders of the heavens to her; and, as he studied herpure profile in the moonlight with eager, searching, wistful gaze, herbeauty impressed him more and more. In the East the man had a friend, anartist. He thought how wonderful a theme for a painting this scene wouldmake. The girl in picturesque hat of soft felt, riding with careless easeand grace; horse, maiden, plain, bathed in a sea of silver.
More and more as she talked the man wondered how this girl reared in thewilds had acquired a speech so free from grammatical errors. She wasapparently deeply ignorant, and yet with a very few exceptions she madeno serious errors in English. How was it to be accounted for?
He began to ply her with questions about herself, but could not find thatshe had ever come into contact with people who were educated. She had noteven lived in any of the miserable little towns that flourish in thewildest of the West, and not within several hundred miles of a city. Theirnearest neighbors in one direction had been forty miles away, she said,and said it as if that were an everyday distance for a neighbor to live.
Mail? They had had a letter once that she could remember, when she was alittle girl. It was just a few lines in pencil to say that her mother'sfather had died. He had been killed in an accident of some sort, workingin the city where he lived. Her mother had kept the letter and cried overit till almost all the pencil marks were gone.
No, they had no mail on the mountain where their homestead was.
Yes, her father went there first because he thought he had discoveredgold, but it turned out to be a mistake; so, as they had no other place togo to, and no money to go with, they had just stayed there; and her fatherand brothers had been cow-punchers, but she and her mother had scarcelyever gone away from home. There were the little children to care for; and,when they died, her mother did not care to go, and would not let her gofar alone.
O, yes, she had ridden a great deal, sometimes with her brothers, but notoften. They went with rough men, and her mother felt afraid to have hergo. The men all drank. Her brothers drank. Her father drank too. Shestated it as if it were a sad fact common to all mankind, and ended withthe statement which was almost, not quite, a question, "I guess you drinktoo."
"Well," said the young man hesitatingly, "not that way. I take a glass ofwine now and then in company, you know--"
"Yes, I know," sighed the girl. "Men are all alike. Mother used to say so.She said men were different from women. They had to drink. She said theyall did it. Only she said her father never did; but he was very good,though he had to work hard."
"Indeed," said the young man, his color rising in the moonlight, "indeed,you make a mistake. I don't drink at all, not that way. I'm not like them.I--why, I only--well, the fact is, I don't care a red cent about the stuffanyway; and I don't want you to think I'm like them. If it will do you anygood, I'll never touch it again, not a drop."
He said it earnestly. He was trying to vindicate himself. Just why heshould care to do so he did not know, only that all at once it was verynecessary that he should appear different in the eyes of this girl from,the other men she had known.
"Will you really?" she asked, turning to look in his face. "Will youpromise that?"
"Why, certainly I will," he said, a trifle embarrassed that she had takenhim at his word. "Of course I will. I tell you it's nothing to me. I onlytook a glass at the club occasionally when the other men were drinking,and sometimes when I went to banquets, class banquets, you know, anddinners--"
Now the girl had never heard of class banquets, but to take a glassoccasionally when the other men were drinking was what her brothers did;and so she sighed, and said: "Yes, you may promise, but I know you won'tkeep it. Father promised too; but, when he got with the other men, it didno good. Men are all alike."
"But I'm not," he insisted stoutly. "I tell you I'm not. I don't drink,and I won't drink. I promise you solemnly here under God's sky that I'llnever drink another drop of intoxicating liquor again if I know it as longas I live."
He put out his hand toward her, and she put her own into it with a quickgrasp for just an instant.
"Then you're not like other men, after all," she said with a glad ring inher voice. "That must be why I wasn't so very much afraid of you when Iwoke up and found you standing there."
A distinct sense of pleasure came over him at her words. Why it shouldmake him glad that she had not been afraid of him when she had first seenhim in the wilderness he did not know. He forgot all about his owntroubles. He forgot the lady in the automobile. Right then and there hedropped her out of his thoughts. He did not know it; but she wasforgotten, and he did not think about her any more during that journey.Something had erased her. He had run away from her, and he had succeededmost effectually, more so than he knew.
There in the desert the man took his first temperance pledge, urgedthereto by a girl who had never heard of a temperance pledge in her life,had never joined a woman's temperance society, and knew nothing aboutwomen's crusades. Her own heart had taught her out of a bitter experiencejust how to use her God-given influence.
They came to a long stretch of level ground then, smooth and hard; and thehorses as with common consent set out to gallop shoulder to shoulder in awild, exhilarating skim across the plain. Talking was impossible. The manreflected that he was making great strides in experience, first a prayerand then a pledge, all in the wilderness. If any one had told him he wasgoing into the West for this, he would have laughed him to scorn.
Towards morning they rode more slowly. Their horses were growing jaded.They talked in lower tones as they looked toward the east. It was as ifthey feared they might waken some
one too soon. There is something awesomeabout the dawning of a new day, and especially when one has been sailing asea of silver all night. It is like coming back from an unreal world intoa sad, real one. Each was almost sorry that the night was over. The newday might hold so much of hardship or relief, so much of trouble orsurprise; and this night had been perfect, a jewel cut to set in memorywith every facet flashing to the light. They did not like to get back toreality from the converse they had held together. It was an experience foreach which would never be forgotten.
Once there came the distant sound of shots and shouts. The two shranknearer each other, and the man laid his strong hand protectingly on themane of the girl's horse; but he did not touch her hand. The lady of histhoughts had sometimes let him hold her jewelled hand, and smiled withdrooping lashes when he fondled it; and, when she had tired of him, otheradmirers might claim the same privilege. But this woman of thewilderness--he would not even in his thoughts presume to touch her littlebrown, firm hand. Somehow she had commanded his honor and respect from thefirst minute, even before she shot the bird.
Once a bob-cat shot across their path but a few feet in front of them, andlater a kit-fox ran growling up with ruffled fur; but the girl's quickshot soon put it to flight, and they passed on through the dawning morningof the first real Sabbath day the girl had ever known.
"It is Sunday morning at home," said the man gravely as he watched the sunlift its rosy head from the mist of mountain and valley outspread beforethem. "Do you have such an institution out here?"
The girl grew white about the lips. "Awful things happen on Sunday," shesaid with a shudder.
He felt a great pity rising in his heart for her, and strove to turn herthoughts in other directions. Evidently there was a recent sorrowconnected with the Sabbath.
"You are tired," said he, "and the horses are tired. See! We ought to stopand rest. The daylight has come, and nothing can hurt us. Here is a goodplace, and sheltered. We can fasten the horses behind these bushes, and noone will guess we are here."
She assented, and they dismounted. The man cut an opening into a clump ofthick growth with his knife, and there they fastened the weary horses,well hidden from sight if any one chanced that way. The girl lay down afew feet away in a spot almost entirely surrounded by sage-brush which hadreached an unusual height and made a fine hiding-place. Just outside theentrance of this natural chamber the man lay down on a fragrant bed ofsage-brush. He had gathered enough for the girl first, and spread out theold coat over it; and she had dropped asleep almost as soon as she laydown. But, although his own bed of sage-brush was tolerably comfortable,even to one accustomed all his life to the finest springs and hairmattress that money could buy, and although the girl had insisted that hemust rest too, for he was weary and there was no need to watch, sleepwould not come to his eyelids.
He lay there resting and thinking. How strange was the experience throughwhich he was passing! Came ever a wealthy, college-bred, society man intothe like before? What did it all mean? His being lost, his wandering for aday, the sight of this girl and his pursuit, the prayer under the opensky, and that night of splendor under the moonlight riding side by side.It was like some marvellous tale.
And this girl! Where was she going? What was to become of her? Out in theworld where he came from, were they ever to reach it, she would benothing. Her station in life was beneath his so far that the onlyrecognition she could have would be one which would degrade her. Thissolitary journey they were taking, how the world would lift up its handsin horror at it! A girl without a chaperon! She was impossible! And yet itall seemed right and good, and the girl was evidently recognized by theangels; else how had she escaped from degradation thus far?
Ah! How did he know she had? But he smiled at that. No one could look intothat pure, sweet face, and doubt that she was as good as she wasbeautiful. If it was not so, he hoped he would never find it out. Sheseemed to him a woman yet unspoiled, and he shrank from the thought ofwhat the world might do for her--the world and its cultivation, whichwould not be for her, because she was friendless and without money orhome. The world would have nothing but toil to give her, with a meagreliving.
Where was she going, and what was she proposing to do? Must he not try tohelp her in some way? Did not the fact that she had saved his life demandso much from him? If he had not found her, he must surely have starvedbefore he got out of this wild place. Even yet starvation was not animpossibility; for they had not reached any signs of habitation yet, andthere was but one more portion of corn-meal and a little coffee left. Theyhad but two matches now, and there had been no more flights of birds, norbrooks with fishes.
In fact, the man found a great deal to worry about as he lay there, tooweary with the unaccustomed exercise and experiences to sleep.
He reflected that the girl had told him very little, after all, about herplans. He must ask her. He wished he knew more of her family. If he wereonly older and she younger, or if he had the right kind of a woman friendto whom he might take her, or send her! How horrible that that scoundrelwas after her! Such men were not men, but beasts, and should be shot down.
Far off in the distance, it might have been in the air or in hisimagination, there sometimes floated a sound as of faint voices or shouts;but they came and went, and he listened, and by and by heard no more. Thehorses breathed heavily behind their sage-brush stable, and the sun rosehigher and hotter. At last sleep came, troubled, fitful, but sleep,oblivion. This time there was no lady in an automobile.
It was high noon when he awoke, for the sun had reached around thesage-brush, and was pouring full into his face. He was very uncomfortable,and moreover an uneasy sense of something wrong pervaded his mind. Had heor had he not, heard a strange, low, sibilant, writhing sound just as hecame to consciousness? Why did he feel that something, some one, hadpassed him but a moment before?
He rubbed his eyes open, and fanned himself with his hat. There was not asound to be heard save a distant hawk in the heavens, and the breathing ofthe horses. He stepped over, and made sure that they were all right, andthen came back. Was the girl still sleeping? Should he call her? But whatshould he call her? She had no name to him as yet. He could not say, "Mydear madam" in the wilderness, nor yet "mademoiselle."
Perhaps it was she who had passed him. Perhaps she was looking about forwater, or for fire-wood. He cast his eyes about, but the thick growth ofsage-brush everywhere prevented his seeing much. He stepped to the rightand then to the left of the little enclosure where she had gone to sleep,but there was no sign of life.
At last the sense of uneasiness grew upon him until he spoke.
"Are you awake yet?" he ventured; but the words somehow stuck in histhroat, and would not sound out clearly. He ventured the question again,but it seemed to go no further than the gray-green foliage in front ofhim. Did he catch an alert movement, the sound of attention, alarm? Had heperhaps frightened her?
His flesh grew creepy, and he was angry with himself that he stood hereactually trembling and for no reason. He felt that there was danger in theair. What could it mean? He had never been a believer in premonitions orsuperstitions of any kind. But the thought came to him that perhaps thatevil man had come softly while he slept, and had stolen the girl away.Then all at once a horror seized him, and he made up his mind to end thissuspense and venture in to see whether she were safe.
The Girl from Montana Page 5