VITHE LIFE OF THE WINDS OF HEAVEN
I
Barbara hesitated long between the open-work stockings and the plain-silk, but finally decided on the former. Then she vouchsafed a pleased little smile to her pleasant little image in the mirror, and stepped through the door into the presence of her aunt. The aunt was appropriately astonished. This was the first time Barbara had spread her dainty chiffon wings in the air of the great north woods. Strangely, daintily incongruous she looked now against the rough walls of the cabin, against the dark fringe of the forest beyond the door.
Barbara was a petite little body with petite little airs of babylike decision. She knew that her greatest attraction lay in the strange backward poise of her head, bringing her chin, pointed and adorable, to the tilt of maddeningcharm. She was perfectly aware, too, of her very full red lips, the colour of cherries, but with the satiny finish of the peach; and she could not remain blind to the fact that her light hair and her velvet-black eyes were in rare and delicious contrast. All these things, and more, Barbara knew because a dozen times a day her mirror swore them true. That she was elusively, teasingly, judicially, calmly distracting she knew because, ever since she could remember, men had told her so with varying degrees of bitter humour. She accepted the fact, and carried herself in all circumstances as a queen surrounded by an indefinite number of rights matured to her selection.
After her plain old backwoods aunt had admired and exclaimed over the butterfly so unexpectedly developed from the brown tailor-made chrysalis, Barbara determined to take a walk. She knew that over through that cool, fascinating forest, only a half-mile away, dwelt the Adamses. The Adamses, too, were only of the woods people, but they were human, and chiffon was chiffon, in the wilderness as in the towns. So Barbara announced her intention, and stepped into the sunlight.
The parasol completed her sense of happiness.She raised it, and slanted it over her shoulder, and drew one of its round tips across her face, playing out to herself a pretty little comedy as she sauntered deliberately down the trail between the stumps and tangled blackberry vines of the clearing. She tilted her chin, and glanced shyly from beneath the brim of her big hat at the solemn stumps, and looked just as pretty as she possibly could for the benefit of the bold, noisy finches. With her light summer dress and her picture-hat and her open-work stockings and her absurd little high-heeled, silver-buckled shoes she had somehow regained the feminine self-confidence which her thick boots and sober brown woods dress had filched from her. For the first time in this whimsical visit to a new environment she was completely happy. Dear little Barbara; she was only eighteen.
Pretty soon the trail entered the great, cool, green forest. Barbara closed her parasol and carried it under one arm, while with the same hand she swept her skirt clear of the ground. She was now agrande marquisein the Forest of Fontainebleau. Through little round holes in the undergrowth she could see away down between the trees to dashes of sunlight and green shadows. Always Barbara conducted herself asthough, in the vista, a cavalier was about to appear, who would sweep off his plumed hat in a bow of knightly adoration. She practised the courtesy in return, sinking on one little high-pointed heel with a downward droop of her pretty head and an upward cast of her pretty eyes.
"Oui, c'est un rêve, un rêve doux d'amour,"**
she hummed, as the hem of her outspread skirt just swept the ground.
"Phew!" came a most terrible, dreadful sound from the thicket close at hand.
Barbara dropped her parasol, and clasped her heart with both hands, and screamed. From the thicket two slender ears pointed inquiringly toward her, two wide brown eyes stared frightened into hers, a delicate nose dilated with terror. "Phew!" snorted the deer again, and vanished in a series of elastic stiff-legged springs.
"Oh!" cried Barbara. "You horrid thing! How you frightened me!"
She picked up her parasol, and resumed her journey in some perturbation of mind, reflecting on the utter rudeness of the deer. Gradually the trail seemed to become more difficult. Aftera time it was obstructed by the top of a fallen basswood. Barbara looked about her. She was not on the trail at all.
This was distinctly annoying. Barbara felt a little resentful on account of it. She gathered her skirts closely about her ankles, and tried to pick her way through the undergrowth to the right. The brush was exceedingly difficult to avoid, and a little patch of briers was worse. Finally an ugly stub ripped a hole in the chiffon skirt. This was unbearable. Barbara stamped her foot in vexation. She wanted to cry; and fully made up her mind to do so as soon as she should have regained the trail. In a little while the high beech-ridge over which she had been travelling ended in a narrow cedar-swamp. Then Barbara did a foolish thing; she tried to cross the swamp.
At first she proceeded circumspectly, with an eye to the chiffon. It was torn in a dozen places. Then she thrust one dear little slipper through the moss into black water. Three times the stiff straight rods of the tamarack whipped her smartly across the face. When finally she emerged on the other side of the hundred feet of that miserable cedar-swamp, she had ceased to hold up the chiffon skirt, and was most vexed.
"I think you're justmean!" she cried, pettishly, to the still forest; and then caught her breath in the silence of awe.
The forest had become suddenly unfriendly; its kindliness had somehow vanished. In all directions it looked the same; straight towering trunks, saplings, undergrowth. It had shut her in with a wall of green, and hurry in whatever direction she would, Barbara was always inclosed in apparently the same little cell of leaves.
Frightened, but with determination, she commenced to walk rapidly in the direction she believed would lead her out. The bushes now caught at her unheeded. She tore through briers, popples, moose-maples alike. The chiffon was sadly marred, the picture-hat stained and awry, the brave little shoes with their silver buckles and their pointed high heels were dull with wet. And suddenly, as the sun shadows began to lift in the late afternoon, her determined stock of fortitude quite ran out. She stopped short. All about her were the same straight towering trunks, the saplings, the undergrowth. Nothing had changed. It was useless.
She dropped to the ground and gave way to her wild terror, weeping with the gulping sobsof a frightened child, but even in extremity dabbing her eyes from time to time with an absurd tiny handkerchief of drawn-work border.
Poor little Barbara: she was lost!
II
After a while, subtly, she felt that someone was standing near her. She looked up.
The somebody was a man. He was young. Barbara saw three things—that he had kindly gray eyes, which just now were twinkling at her amusedly; that the handkerchief about his neck was clean; and that the line of his jaw was unusually clear cut and fine. An observant person would have noticed further that the young man carried a rifle and a pack, that he wore a heavily laden belt about his waist, and moccasins on his feet, that his blue-flannel shirt, though clean, was faded, that his skin was as brown as pine-bark. Barbara had no use for such details. The eye was kindly, the jaw was strong, the neatness indicated the gentleman. And a strong, kindly gentleman was just what poor little lost Barbara needed the most. Unconsciously she tilted her pointed chin forward adorably, and smiled.
"Oh, now it's all right, isn't it?" said she.
"I am glad," he replied, the look of amusement deepening in his gray eyes. "And a moment ago it was all wrong. What was the matter?"
"I am lost," answered Barbara, contentedly, as one would say, "My shoes are a little dusty."
"That's bad," sympathised the other. "Where are you lost from?"
"The Adamses' or the Maxwells', I don't know which. I started to go from one to the other. Then there was the deer, and so I got lost."
"I see," he agreed with entire assurance. "And now what are you going to do?"
"I am not going to do anything. You are to take me home."
"To the Adamses or the Maxwells?"
"To whichever is nearest."
The young man seemed to be debating. Barbara glanced at his thoughtful, strong face from under the edge of her picture-hat, which slyly she had rearranged. She liked his face. It was so good-humoured.
"It is almost sunset," replied the youth at length. "You can see the shadows are low. How do you hope to push through the woods after dark? There are wild animals—wolves!" he added, maliciously.
Barbara looked up again with sudden alarm.
"But what shall we do?" she cried, less composedly. "Youmusttake me home!"
"I can try," said he, with the resignation of the man who can but die.
The tone had its effect.
"What do you advise?" she asked.
"That we camp here," he proposed, calmly, with an air of finality.
"Oh!" dissented Barbara in alarm. "Never! I am afraid of the woods! It will be wet and cold! I am hungry! My feet are just sopping!"
"I will watch all night with my rifle," he told her. "I will fix you a tent, and will cook you a supper, and your feet shall not be wet and cold one moment longer than you will."
"Isn't your home nearer?" she asked.
"My home is where night finds me," he replied.
Barbara meditated. It was going to be dreadful. She knew she would catch her death of cold. But what could she do about it?
"You may fix the wet-feet part," she assented at last.
"All right," agreed the young man with alacrity. He unslung the pack from his back, and removed from the straps a little axe. "Now,I am not going to be gone but a moment," he assured her, "and while I am away, you must take off your shoes and stockings and put these on." He had been fumbling in his pack, and now produced a pair of thick woollen lumberman's socks.
Barbara held one at arm's length in each hand, and looked at them. Then she looked up at the young man. Then they both laughed.
While her new protector was away, Barbara not only made the suggested changes, but she did marvels with the chiffon. Really, it did not look so bad, considering.
When the young man returned with an armful of hemlock bark and the slivers of a pine-stump, he found her sitting bolt upright on a log, her feet tucked under her. Before the fire he shortly hung the two webs of gossamer and the two dear little ridiculous little high-heeled shoes, with their silver buckles. Then in a most business-like fashion he pitched a diminutive shelter-tent. With equal expedition he built a second fire between two butternut-logs, produced a frying-pan, and set about supper.
The twilight was just falling. Somehow the great forest had lost its air of unfriendliness. The birds were singing in exactly the same waythey used to sing in the tiny woods of the Picnic Grounds. It was difficult to believe in the wilderness. The young man moved here and there with accustomed ease, tending his pot and pan, feeding the fire. Barbara watched him interestedly. Gradually the conviction gained on her that he was worth while, and that he had not once glanced in her direction since he had begun his preparations. At the moment he was engaged in turning over sizzling things in the pan.
"If you please," said Barbara, with her small air of decision, "I am very thirsty."
"You will have to wait until I go to the spring," replied the man without stirring.
Barbara elevated her small nose in righteous indignation. After a long time she just peeped in his direction. He was laughing to himself. She hastily elevated her nose again. After all it was very lonely in the woods.
"Supper is ready," he announced after a time.
"I do not think I care for any," she replied, with dignity. She was very tired and hungry and cross, and her eyes were hot.
"Oh, yes you do," he insisted, carelessly. "Come now, before it gets cold."
"I tell you I do not care for any," she returned, haughtily.
For answer he picked her up bodily, carried her ten feet, and deposited her on another log. Beside her lay a clean bit of bark containing a broiled deer-steak, toasted bread, and a cup of tea. She struggled angrily.
"Don't be a fool," the man commanded, sternly, "you need food. You will eat supper, now!"
Barbara looked up at him with wide eyes. Then she began to eat the venison. By and by she remarked, "Youarerather nice," and after she had drained the last drop of tea she even smiled, a trifle humbly. "Thank you," said she.
It was now dark, and the night had stolen down through the sentry trees to the very outposts of the fire. The man arranged the rubber blanket before it. Barbara sat upon the blanket and leaned her back against the log. He perched above her, producing a pipe.
"May I?" he asked.
Then, when he had puffed a few moments in quiet content, he inquired: "How did you come to get lost?"
She told him.
"That was very foolish," he scolded, severely. "Don't you know any better than to go into the woods without your bearings? It was idiotic!"
"Thank you," replied Barbara, meekly.
"Well, it was!" he insisted, the bronze on his cheek deepening a little.
She watched him for some time, while he watched the flames. She liked to see the light defining boldly the clean-shaven outline of his jaw; she liked to guess at the fire of his gray eyes beneath the shadow of his brow. Not once did he look toward her. Meekly she told herself that this was just. He was dreaming of larger things, seeing in the coals pictures of that romantic, strenuous, mysterious life of which he was a part. He had no room in the fulness of his existence for such as she—she, silly little Barbara, whose only charm was a maddening fashion of pointing outward her adorable chin. She asked him about it, this life of the winds of heaven.
"Are you always in the woods?" she inquired.
"Not always," said he.
"But you live in them a great deal?"
"Yes."
"You must have a great many exciting adventures."
"Not many."
"Where did you come from just now?"
"South."
"Where are you going?"
"Northwest."
"What are you going to do there?"
There ensued a slight pause before the stranger's reply. "Walk through the woods," said he.
"In other words, it's none of my business," retorted Barbara, a little tartly.
"Ah, but you see it's not entirely mine," he explained.
This offered a new field.
"Then you are on a mission?"
"Yes."
"Is it important?"
"Yes."
"How long is it going to take you?"
"Many years."
"What is your name?"
"Garrett Stanton."
"You are a gentleman, aren't you?"
A flicker of amusement twinkled subtly in the corner of his eye. "I suppose you mean gently bred, college-educated. Do you think it's of vast importance?"
Barbara examined him reflectively, her chin in her hand, her elbow on her knee. She looked at his wavy hair, his kindly, humorous gray eyes,the straight line of his fine-cut nose, his firm lips with the quaint upward twist of the corners, the fine contour of his jaw.
"No-o-o," she agreed, "I don't suppose it does. Only I know youarea gentleman," she added, with delightful inconsistence. Stanton bowed gravely to the fire in ironic acknowledgment.
"Why don't you ever look at me?" burst out Barbara, vexed. "Why do you stare at that horrid fire?"
He turned and looked her full in the face. In a moment her eyes dropped before his frank scrutiny. She felt the glow rising across her forehead. When she raised her head again he was staring calmly at the fire as before, one hand clasped under his arm, the other holding the bowl of his brier pipe.
"Now," said he, "I will ask a few questions. Won't this all-night absence alarm your relatives?"
"Oh, no. I often spend the night at the Adamses'. They will think I am there."
"Parents are apt to be anxious."
"But mine are not here, you see."
"What is your name?"
"Barbara Lowe."
He fell silent. Barbara was distinctly piqued.He might have exhibited a more flattering interest.
"Is that all you want to know about me?" she cried in an injured tone.
"I know all about you now. Listen: Your name is Barbara Lowe; you come from Detroit, where you are not yet 'out'; you are an only child; and eighteen or nineteen years of age."
"Why, who has been telling you about me?" cried Barbara, astonished.
Stanton smiled. "Nobody," he replied. "Don't you know that we woodsmen live by our observation? Do you see anything peculiar about that tree?"
Barbara examined the vegetable in question attentively. "No," she confessed at last.
"There is an animal in it. Look again."
"I can see nothing," repeated Barbara, after a second scrutiny.
Stanton arose. Seizing a brand from the fire, he rapped sharply on the trunk. Then slowly what had appeared to be a portion of the hole began to disintegrate, and in a moment a drowsy porcupine climbed rattling to a place of safety.
"That is how I know about you," explained the woodsman, returning to the fire. "Your remark about staying overnight told me that you werevisiting the Maxwells rather than the Adamses; I knew the latter must be relatives, because a girl who wears pretty summer dresses would not visit mere friends in the wilderness; you would get tired of this life in a few weeks, and so will not care to stay longer; you wear your school-pin still, so you are not yet 'out'; the maker's name in your parasol caused me to guess you from Detroit."
"And about my being an only child?"
"Well," replied Stanton, "you see, you have a little the manner of one who has been a trifle——"
"Spoiled!" finished Barbara, with wicked emphasis.
Stanton merely laughed.
"That is not nice," she reproved, with vast dignity.
A cry, inexpressibly mournful, quivered from the woods close at hand.
"Oh, what is that?" she exclaimed.
"Our friend the porcupine. Don't be frightened."
Down through the trees sighed a little wind. "Whoo!whoo!whoo!" droned an owl, monotonously. The sparks from the fire shot up and eddied. A chill was in the air. Barbara's eyes grew heavier and heavier. She tucked her feetunder her and expanded in the warmth like a fireside kitten. Then, had she known it, the man was looking at her, looking at her with a strange, wistful tenderness in his gray eyes. Dear, harmless, innocent little Barbara, who had so confidingly trusted in his goodness!
"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 exceedinglyterrifying, 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 verybeautiful 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 hadceased 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. Youwill 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 fingerswith 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.
ITHE 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 reached 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 frivolousaffectation, 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 soonhave 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 carelesslybecause 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 fellowIever 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 willhardly 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. Iwishyou 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'llbe 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, justlet'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 hear 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, andsent 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 notfind—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.
"I left Miss Caldwell here a half-minute ago," he observed to Alfred, "and I guess she's given me the slip. Scold her good for me when she comes in—will you?" He grinned, with good-natured malice at the idea of Alfred's scolding anyone.
Then Alfred surprised him.
The little man straightened suddenly in his saddle and uttered a fervent curse. After a brief circle about the prairie, he returned to the young man.
"You go back to th' wagons, and wake up Billy Knapp, and tell him this—that I've gone scoutin' some, and I want him towatch out. Understand?Watch out!"
"What?" began the Easterner, bewildered.
"I'm a-goin' to find her," said the little man, decidedly.
"You don't think there's any danger, do you?" asked the Easterner, in anxious tones. "Can't I help you?"
"You do as I tell you," replied the little man, shortly, and rode away.
He followed Miss Caldwell's trail quite rapidly, for the trail was fresh. As long as he looked intently for hoof-marks, nothing was to be seen, the prairie was apparently virgin; but by glancing the eye forty or fifty yards ahead, a faint line was discernible through the grasses.
Alfred came upon Miss Caldwell seated quietly on her horse in the very centre of a prairie-dog town, and so, of course, in the midst of an area of comparatively desert character. She was amusing herself by watching the marmots as they barked, or watched, or peeped at her, according to their distance from her. The sight of Alfred was not welcome, for he frightened the marmots.
When he saw Miss Caldwell, Alfred grew bashful again. He sidled his horse up to her and blushed.
"I'll show you th' way back, miss," he said, diffidently.
"Thank you," replied Miss Caldwell, with a slight coldness, "I can find my own way back."
"Yes, of course," hastened Alfred, in anagony. "But don't you think we ought to start back now? I'd like to go with you, miss, if you'd let me. You see the afternoon's quite late."
Miss Caldwell cast a quizzical eye at the sun.
"Why, it's hours yet till dark!" she said, amusedly.
Then Alfred surprised Miss Caldwell.
His diffident manner suddenly left him. He jumped like lightning from his horse, threw the reins over the animal's head so he would stand, and ran around to face Miss Caldwell.
"Here, jump down!" he commanded.
The soft Southernburrof his ordinary conversation had given place to a clear incisiveness. Miss Caldwell looked at him amazed.
Seeing that she did not at once obey, Alfred actually began to fumble hastily with the straps that held her riding-skirt in place. This was so unusual in the bashful Alfred that Miss Caldwell roused and slipped lightly to the ground.
"Now what?" she asked.
Alfred, without replying, drew the bit to within a few inches of the animal's hoofs, and tied both fetlocks firmly together with the double-loop. This brought the pony's nose down close to his shackled feet. Then he did the same thing with his own beast. Thus neither animal couldso much as hobble one way or the other. They were securely moored.
Alfred stepped a few paces to the eastward. Miss Caldwell followed.
"Sit down," said he.
Miss Caldwell obeyed with some nervousness. She did not understand at all, and that made her afraid. She began to have a dim fear lest Alfred might have gone crazy. His next move strengthened this suspicion. He walked away ten feet and raised his hand over his head, palm forward. She watched him so intently that for a moment she saw nothing else. Then she followed the direction of his gaze, and uttered a little sobbing cry.
Just below the sky-line of the first slope to eastward was silhouetted a figure on horseback. The figure on horseback sat motionless.
"We're in for fight," said Alfred, coming back after a moment. "He won't answer my peace-sign, and he's a Sioux. We can't make a run for it through this dog-town. We've just got to stand 'em off."
He threw down and back the lever of his old 44 Winchester, and softly uncocked the arm. Then he sat down by Miss Caldwell.
From various directions, silently, warriors onhorseback sprang into sight and moved dignifiedly toward the first-comer, forming at the last a band of perhaps thirty men. They talked together for a moment, and then one by one, at regular intervals, detached themselves and began circling at full speed to the left, throwing themselves behind their horses, and yelling shrill-voiced, but firing no shot as yet.
"They'll rush us," speculated Alfred. "We're too few to monkey with this way. This is a bluff."
The circle about the two was now complete. After watching the whirl of figures a few minutes, and the motionless landscape beyond, the eye became dizzied and confused.
"They won't have no picnic," went on Alfred, with a little chuckle. "Dog-hole's as bad fer them as fer us. They don't know how to fight. If they was to come in on all sides, I couldn't handle 'em, but they always rush in a bunch, likedamnfools!" and then Alfred became suffused with blushes, and commenced to apologise abjectly and profusely to a girl who had heard neither the word nor its atonement. The savages and the approaching fight were all she could think of.
Suddenly one of the Sioux threw himself forwardunder his horse's neck and fired. The bullet went wild, of course, but it shrieked with the rising inflection of a wind-squall through bared boughs, seeming to come ever nearer. Miss Caldwell screamed and covered her face. The savages yelled in chorus.
The one shot seemed to be the signal for a spattering fire all along the line. Indians never clean their rifles, rarely get good ammunition, and are deficient in the philosophy of hind-sights. Besides this, it is not easy to shoot at long range in a constrained position from a running horse. Alfred watched them contemptuously in silence.
"If they keep that up long enough, the wagon-train may hear 'em," he said, finally. "Wisht we weren't so far to nor-rard. There, it's comin'!" he said, more excitedly.
The chief had paused, and, as the warriors came to him, they threw their ponies back on their haunches, and sat motionless. They turned, the ponies' heads toward the two.
Alfred arose deliberately for a better look.
"Yes, that's right," he said to himself, "that's old Lone Pine, sure thing. I reckon we-all's got to make agoodfight!"
The girl had sunk to the ground, and was shakingfrom head to foot. It is not nice to be shot at in the best of circumstances, but to be shot at by odds of thirty to one, and the thirty of an out-landish and terrifying species, is not nice at all. Miss Caldwell had gone to pieces badly, and Alfred looked grave. He thoughtfully drew from its holster his beautiful Colt's with its ivory handle, and laid it on the grass. Then he blushed hot and cold, and looked at the girl doubtfully. A sudden movement in the group of savages, as the war-chief rode to the front, decided him.
"Miss Caldwell," he said.
The girl shivered and moaned.
Alfred dropped to his knees and shook her shoulder roughly.
"Look up here," he commanded. "We ain't got but a minute."
Composed a little by the firmness of his tone, she sat up. Her face had gone chalky, and her hair had partly fallen over her eyes.
"Now, listen to every word," he said, rapidly. "Those Injins is goin' to rush us in a minute. P'r'aps I can break them, but I don't know. In that pistol there, I'll always save two shots—understand?—it's always loaded. If I see it's all up, I'm a-goin' to shoot you with one of 'em, and myself with the other."
"Oh!" cried the girl, her eyes opening wildly. She was paying close enough attention now.
"And if they kill me first"—he reached forward and seized her wrist impressively—"if they kill me first, you must take that pistol and shoot yourself. Understand? Shoot yourself—in the head—here!"
He tapped his forehead with a stubby forefinger.
The girl shrank back in horror. Alfred snapped his teeth together and went on grimly.
"If they get hold of you," he said, with solemnity, "they'll first take off every stitch of your clothes, and when you're quite naked they'll stretch you out on the ground with a raw-hide to each of your arms and legs. And then they'll drive a stake through the middle of your body into the ground—and leave you there—to die—slowly!"
And the girl believed him, because, incongruously enough, even through her terror she noticed that at this, the most immodest speech of his life, Alfred did not blush. She looked at the pistol lying on the turf with horrified fascination.
The group of Indians, which had up to now remained fully a thousand yards away, suddenlyscreeched and broke into a run directly toward the dog-town.
There is an indescribable rush in a charge of savages. The little ponies make their feet go so fast, the feathers and trappings of the warriors stream behind so frantically, the whole attitude of horse and man is so eager, that one gets an impression of fearful speed and resistless power. The horizon seems full of Indians.
As if this were not sufficiently terrifying, the air is throbbing with sound. Each Indian pops away for general results as he comes jumping along, and yells shrilly to show what a big warrior he is, while underneath it all is the hurried monotone of hoof-beats becoming ever louder, as the roar of an increasing rainstorm on the roof. It does not seem possible that anything can stop them.
Yet there is one thing that can stop them, if skilfully taken advantage of, and that is their lack of discipline. An Indian will fight hard when cornered, or when heated by lively resistance, but he hates to go into it in cold blood. As he nears the opposing rifle, this feeling gets stronger. So often a man with nerve enough to hold his fire, can break a fierce charge merely by waiting until it is within fifty yards or so, andthen suddenly raising the muzzle of his gun. If he had gone to shooting at once, the affair would have become a combat, and the Indians would have ridden him down. As it is, each has had time to think. By the time the white man is ready to shoot, the suspense has done its work. Each savage knows that but one will fall, but, cold-blooded, he does not want to be that one; and, since in such disciplined fighters it is each for himself, he promptly ducks behind his mount and circles away to the right or the left. The whole band swoops and divides, like a flock of swift-winged terns on a windy day.
This Alfred relied on in the approaching crisis.
The girl watched the wild sweep of the warriors with strained eyes. She had to grasp her wrist firmly to keep from fainting, and she seemed incapable of thought. Alfred sat motionless on a dog-mound, his rifle across his lap. He did not seem in the least disturbed.
"It's good to fight again," he murmured, gently fondling the stock of his rifle. "Come on, ye devils! Oho!" he cried as a warrior's horse went down in a dog-hole, "I thought so!"
His eyes began to shine.
The ponies came skipping here and there,nimbly dodging in and out between the dog-holes. Their riders shot and yelled wildly, but none of the bullets went lower than ten feet. The circle of their advance looked somehow like the surge shoreward of a great wave, and the similarity was heightened by the nodding glimpses of the light eagles' feathers in their hair.
The run across the honey-combed plain was hazardous—even to Indian ponies—and three went down kicking, one after the other. Two of the riders lay stunned. The third sat up and began to rub his knee. The pony belonging to Miss Caldwell, becoming frightened, threw itself and lay on its side, kicking out frantically with its hind legs.
At the proper moment Alfred cocked his rifle and rose swiftly to his knees. As he did so, the mound on which he had been kneeling caved into the hole beneath it, and threw him forward on his face. With a furious curse, he sprang to his feet and levelled his rifle at the thick of the press. The scheme worked. In a flash every savage disappeared behind his pony, and nothing was to be seen but an arm and a leg. The band divided on either hand as promptly as though the signal for such a drill had been given, and swept gracefully around in two long circles until it reined up motionlessat nearly the exact point from which it had started on its imposing charge. Alfred had not fired a shot.
He turned to the girl with a short laugh.
She lay face upward on the ground, staring at the sky with wide-open, horror-stricken eyes. In her brow was a small blackened hole, and under her head, which lay strangely flat against the earth, the grasses had turned red. Near her hand lay the heavy Colt's 44.
Alfred looked at her a minute without winking. Then he nodded his head.
"It was 'cause I fell down that hole—she thought they'd got me!" he said aloud to himself. "Pore little gal! She hadn't ought to have did it!"
He blushed deeply, and, turning his face away, pulled down her skirt until it covered her ankles. Then he picked up his Winchester and fired three shots. The first hit directly back of the ear one of the stunned Indians who had fallen with his horse. The second went through the other stunned Indian's chest. The third caught the Indian with the broken leg between the shoulders just as he tried to get behind his struggling pony.
Shortly after, Billy Knapp and the wagon-train came along.