CHAPTER XII
DEAN WOLCOTT had many times—on his solitary rides, in his cabin, after the Scout had gone to sleep—rehearsed his next meeting with Ginger McVeagh, planned it, pictured it, set the stage: never had he dreamed of such utterly satisfying scenery, such glorious action; riding a gentled Snort after cattle at Dos Pozos before the respectful gaze of the girl and ’Rome Ojeda was a slow and pallid film beside this!
He had wheeled sharply at sound of her voice, and now they were looking at each other. His face flamed scarlet, but the bright color slowly drained out of Ginger’s and left it in golden, creamy pallor. They held the pose for a stunned instant, the man, rifle in hand, standing over the beautiful dead beast, the girl, wet-eyed and breathing fast, erect upon the doctor’s splendid horse.
“I didn’t know you were ... at the camp.” He heard himself speaking.
“I didn’t know you were the Ranger,” Ginger said, unsteadily.
It seemed then as if they had said all there was to say, and a pause stretched out silently between them. It was broken by the Scout who had slipped swiftly from the Mabel horse and was kneeling on the ground, his ecstatic arms about the fawn. It was panting and struggling, its dappled sides heaving painfully in the battle for breath, and its big eyes rolled in sick panic.
“Oh, Ranger, can I keep him? Can I keep him and tame him and have him for a pet? Can I?” The boy shrilled into their silence. “Oh, say,canI? I betcher Aunt Lizzie would let me keep ababy deer, maybe! We got a back yard!CanI, Ranger?”
There was rescue and relief in walking over to him, in addressing himself wholly to him, his back toward the girl. “Well, Scout, you could, of course, but I think it would be a pretty mean trick to play on him, don’t you?”
The kindling eagerness in Elmer’s face died hard. “But—if I was awful good to him and fed him—’n’ everything? And no mountain lionswould ever chase him in the city! Oh, Ranger,canI?”
Dean Wolcott thought that perhaps the girl would speak—he remembered her hot convictions on the subject of captive wild things—but she did not; perhaps she was likewise thankful for this instant of shelter.
“You can put your rope around his neck and see how he takes it, Scout,” he said. “See if you can get him to drink, first of all. He’s too weak to run away, yet.” Then he turned back to Ginger. “Will you dismount?”
“Thank you, no,” she said.
Even through the mists of amazement he sensed a difference ... what was it? Intonation? Phrasing? It was too tiny a thing to notice, really, but hadn’t she always said—“No, thanks”—with a certain slouchiness of articulation? He could not know that this was one of Mary Wiley’s small, smooth habits of speech.
“Then, may I give you a drink?” He pulled out his folding cup.
“Please! I remember Cold Spring; I’ve been remembering it, thirstily, for the last hour.”
Gravely, he knelt and rinsed his cup and filledit and carried it to her, and gravely she drank, and the stillness about them was charged and quivering. If they had been alone— But they were not alone. The Scout called upon them in a thrilled whisper to revel with him in the spectacle of the fawn drinking from his cupped hands, and again they were grateful to him, thankful for him. They watched absorbedly while he got his hair rope from the neck of Mabel, the lady horse, and put it, shaking with excitement, about the slim little throat of the young deer.
Then Ginger turned her gaze to the mountain lion, round which Rusty, the Airedale, was walking, the hair standing up in a line from the crown of his head to the tip of his tail. He was emitting low, ferocious growls. “That was a good shot,” she said, levelly.
“Thank you,” said Dean Wolcott, pleasantly. “The element of surprise was the only doubt; one could hardly miss a target of that size, at that distance.”
Another pause came down out of the blue and enveloped them thickly, and again the boy and the little wild beast filled up the stage. The fawn had staggered to its feet at the feel of the ropeand now, refreshed by the water, by the minutes of rest, it began to battle this fresh terror.
“Careful, Scout! If he gets away from you with that rope he’ll be out of luck; he’ll hang himself in the brush within an hour!” Dean’s voice was sharp.
“Oh, gee—will he? Oh, golly!Gee!Then—thenhelpme to let him loose!”
“I’ll help you!” Ginger was out of the saddle, down beside him, her arms about the madly struggling body. It had been more than she could bear, Dean Wolcott had calculated surely. “I’ll hold him. Get your rope off. And boy, Scout”—she looked at him earnestly across the head of the fawn, just as he slipped the hair rope clumsily off—“never keep anything—tied or in a cage! Never keep anything—that—that doesn’t want to stay!”
“I guess I won’t,” said Elmer Bunty, soberly. “I thought I could take awful good care of him, but— Look!Looky!”
The baby deer was trotting unsteadily back in the direction from which he had come, making all the speed his weakness and weariness would allow, but at the bend in the trail he paused and lookedback over his shoulder; he stood there, looking back at them for a long instant.
“He’s thanking you,” said Ginger, gently. “He’s thanking you—both.”
Now the boy was free to give his undivided attention to the dead lion, and he joined the Airedale in his sentry go, and now Ginger was aware of being off her horse, aware that she was—good heavens, what had the doctor said about “not lingering”? He had known, of course, and planned it all, and Aunt Fan had known—and perhaps the very blond girl had known, and the whole camp—the whole gay, jovial, joking camp had known.... She blushed, swiftly and scorchingly, and sprang into her saddle.
“I must go,” she said, curtly. “It’s a good two hours—”
She gave Ted his head, and he sprang forward on the trail. She could not even say good-by.
“Oh—wait!” Dean Wolcott called after her, but she pretended not to hear. She was in a hot fury; she had been tricked and fooled; this was why Aunt Fan had brought her down here; they were all waiting for her now at camp, talking her over, laughing, conjecturing. “Ted!” Sheflecked the shining flank with herramal(sacrilege, this!) and they sped fleetly up the trail. She heard him following her; Ted heard, too, and laid back his ears; there would be no passing him on the trail—no catching up with him.
She could not forbear a look behind; she must see him on Snort; it was not enough to hear the thundering hoofs, to imagine him. The instant she turned her head he waved his hand with something—a paper—a card in it.
“Your—permits!” he called. “The doctor’s camp-fire permits.”
Then she must wait, pulling in the mettlesome Ted, furious at herself for forgetting, for betraying her confused bewilderment. The crisping color stayed in her face, but she had a cool hold on her voice. “Thank you—I’m sorry. Seeing the lion, and the fawn—it went out of my mind—”
“Naturally,” said the Ranger, gravely. He handed her the permits, and he did it slowly, filling up his eyes with the sight of her. It was he who wore the corduroy now; Ginger was in creamy linen, smartly cut, with a scarlet band on her linen hat and a soft scarlet tie under the rolling collar of her sport shirt; she was more radiant, moreglowing, more breath-takingly lovely, even, than he had remembered, and he had remembered a great deal.
Then, just to make entirely clear the fact that she was wholly at her ease, that there were, for her, at least, no stinging memories, the girl said pleasantly—“Snort is in fine condition, isn’t he?”
And the man, quite as coolly, made answer, “Yes; he’s a great horse—I’ve enjoyed him.” Then, as if to paraphrase ’Rome Ojeda’s drawling words on that gray and baleful morning of the cattle drive, he added, slowly, “But I’m thinking of changing his name. You see ... hedoesn’t... any more!”
It was her turn, now, during his leisurely sentence, to snatch a fuller look at him, to sense the breadth and vigor, the brown and vehement power of him; he looked older, in the way of poise and serenity, yet more boyish—younger, winningly young, and it seemed as she looked at him, meeting the eagerness leashed in his eyes, as if some force beyond their stiff young wills must pull them down off their horses and push them back into each other’s arms.
She did not answer what he had said aboutSnort, but she was not aware that she had not done so, for she had paid full and instant tribute in her own mind, and she knew that she must gonowif she meant to go at all. She nodded, and spoke to Ted, and he sprang forward, but before he had gone a dozen lengths she had to halt again; she could have wept with rage at herself, but it would be intolerable to go back to camp and confess to a forgotten message.
She called after him, not “Dean,” not the ridiculous “Mr. Wolcott,” just a hail; but it stopped him instantly. “The doctor”—he could feel the emphasis she put on the two words—it seemed to make the doctor stand out, unique in his strange desire—“the doctorhopes you will come to supper at the camp Saturday night, and stay to dance.”
He asked her to thank the doctor and to say that he would try to come. Then they went steadily on in their opposite ways and neither one of them looked back again, and Ginger had almost two hours (Ted made even better speed on the home trail) in which to get herself thoroughly in hand before she met the campers. It suited her to find them all assembled at the “Civic Center” as they called the cleared space about the campfire. The mail had just been brought over from Pfeiffer’s, and they had all had their tingling cold showers and made their bluff, informal toilets for dinner, and there was a chattering over letters and magazines which ceased instantly as Ginger rode up. She might be imagining a sort of electric quiet on the part of the whole group, she told herself, but she was not imagining anything about the doctor and her Aunt Fan.
The doctor paused in the middle of his gesture in handing a plump letter to the betrothed girl, and his eyes twinkled uncontrollably, and Mrs. Featherstone put her pink sport handkerchief to her lips. “Well,” said Dr. Mayfield, genially, “did you meet the Ranger? And did you get our permits?”
“Yes,” said Ginger. “I met the Ranger at Cold Spring, and here are your permits.” She leaned from the saddle to hand them to him. Then, addressing herself to the others, smiling a little at the very blond girl who was holding up two crossed fingers for her attention—“And it was a very nice surprise! I find your Ranger is an old friend. Yes; he was Aleck’s best friend—over there. He was with him—on the last day.” (Letthem laugh now, if they could! But they didn’t laugh; they smiled at her and murmured kind little fragments of sentences, and she went on.) “And he made Aunt Fan and me a visit at Dos Pozos last summer. You’ll be glad to see how husky he’s grown in this work, Aunt Fan!” Mary Wiley could not have done it more handily, with nicer values. “And it was very thrilling—I saw him shoot a mountain lion! I’ll tell you all about it at supper, but I must fly now, if I’m to have my shower!”
She delivered Ted over to his master with a warm word of homage, and ran to her cabin and went into it and locked both doors. She didn’t want her Aunt Fan’s prominent blue eyes. Swiftly, an eye on the little traveling clock in its case of scarlet leather, she pulled off her clothes and jumped under the shower, and her slim brown body was shivering before the nipping water touched it.