CHAPTER XXIXSOMETHING AMAZING
Now that Garry Knapp had left The Cedars—had passed out of her life forever perhaps—Dorothy Dale found herself in a much disturbed state of mind. She did not wish to sit and think over her situation. If she did she knew she would break down.
She was tempted—oh! sorely tempted—to write Garry Knapp all that was in her heart. Her cheeks burned when she thought of doing such a thing; yet, after all, she was fighting for happiness and as she saw it receding from her she grew desperate.
But Dorothy Dale had gone as far as she could. She had done her best to bring the man she loved into line with her own thought. She had the satisfaction of believing he felt toward her as she did toward him. But there matters stood; she could do no more. She did not let her mind dwell upon this state of affairs; she could not and retain that calm expected of Dorothy Dale by the rest of the family at The Cedars. It is what is expected of us that we accomplish, after all. She had neverbeen in the habit of giving away to her feelings, even as a schoolgirl. Much more was expected of her now.
The older people about her were, of course, sympathetic. She would have been glad to get away from them for that very reason. Whenever Tavia looked at her Dorothy saw commiseration in her eyes. So, too, with Aunt Winnie and the major. Dorothy turned with relief to her brothers who had not much thought for anything but fun and frolic.
Joe and Roger had quite fallen in love with Garry Knapp and talked a good deal about him. But their talk was innocent enough and was not aimed at her. They had not discovered—as they had regarding Jennie Hapgood and Ned—that their big sister was in the toils of this strange new disease that seemed to have smitten the young folk at The Cedars.
On this very day that Tavia had elected to go to town and Nat had driven her in the cutter, Dorothy put on her wraps for a tramp through the snow. As she started toward the back road she saw Joe and Roger coming away from the kitchen door, having been whisked out by the cook.
“Take it all and go and don’t youse boys be botherin’ me again to-day—and everything behind because of the wash,” cried Mary, as the boys departed.
“What have you been bothering Mary for?” asked Dorothy, hailing her brothers.
“Suet,” said Joe.
“Oh, do come on, Sister,” cried the eager Roger. “We’re going to feed ’em.”
“Feed what?” asked Dorothy.
“The bluejays and the clapes and the snow buntings,” Roger declared.
“With suet?”
“That’s for the jays,” explained Joe. “We’ve got plenty of cracked corn and oats for the little birds. You see, we tie the chunks of suet up in the trees—and you ought to see the bluejays come after it!”
“Do come with us,” begged Roger again, who always found a double pleasure in having Dorothy attend them on any venture.
“I don’t know. You boys have grown so you can keep ahead of me,” laughed Dorothy. “Where are you going—how far?”
“Up to Snake Hill—there by the gully. Mr. Garry Knapp showed us last week,” Joe said. “He says he always feeds the birds in the winter time out where he lives.”
Dorothy smiled and nodded. “I should presume he did,” she said. “He is that kind—isn’t he, boys?”
“He’s bully,” said Roger, with enthusiasm.
“Whatkind?” asked Joe, with some caution.
“Just kind,” laughed Dorothy. “Kind to everybody and everything. Birds and all,” she said. But to herself she thought: “Kind to everybody but poor little me!”
However, she went on with her brothers. They plowed through the drifts in the back road, but found the going not as hard as in the woods. The tramp to the edge of the gully into which the boys had come so near to plunging on their sled weeks before, was quite exhausting.
This distant spot had been selected because of the number of birds that always were to be found here, winter or summer. The undergrowth was thick and the berries and seeds tempted many of the songsters and bright-plumaged birds to remain beyond the usual season for migration.
Then it would be too late for them to fly South had they so desired. Now, with the heavy snow heaped upon everything edible, the feathered creatures were going to have a time of famine if they were not thought of by their human neighbors.
Sparrows and chicadees are friendly little things and will keep close to human habitations in winter; but the bluejay, that saucy rascal, is always shy. He and his wilder brothers must be fed in the woods.
There were the tracks of the birds—thousands and thousands of tracks about the gully. Roger began to throw out the grain, scattering it carefullyon the snowcrust, while Joe climbed up the first tree with a lump of suet tied to a cord.
“I got to tie it high,” he told Dorothy, who asked him, “’cause otherwise, Mr. Knapp says, dogs or foxes, or such like, will get it instead of the birds.”
“Oh, I see,” Dorothy said. “Look where you step, Roger. See! the gully is level full of snow. What a drift!”
This was true. The snow lay in the hollow from twenty to thirty feet in depth. None of the Dales could remember seeing so much snow before.
Dorothy held the other pieces of suet for Joe while he climbed the second tree. It was during this process that she suddenly missed Roger. She could not hear him nor see him.
“Roger!” she called.
“What’s the matter with you?” demanded Joe tartly. “You’re scaring the birds.”
“But Roger is scaringme,” his sister told him. “Look, Joe, from where you are. Can you see him? Is he hiding from us?”
Joe gave a glance around; then he hastened to descend the tree.
“What is it?” asked Dorothy worriedly. “What has happened to him?”
Joe said never a word, but hastened along the bank of the gully. They could scarcely distinguish the line of the bank in some places and right atthe very steepest part was a wallow in the snow. Something had sunk down there and the snow had caved in after it!
“Roger!” gasped Dorothy, her heart beating fast and the muscles of her throat tightening.
“Oh, cricky!” groaned Joe. “He’s gone down.”
It was the steepest and deepest part of the gully. Not a sound came up from the huge drift into which the smaller boy had evidently tumbled—no answer to their cries.
Dorothy and her brothers had scarcely gone out of sight of the house when Major Dale, looking from the broad front window of his room, beheld a figure plowing through the heaped up snow and in at the gateway of The Cedars. It was not Nat and it was not Ned; at first he did not recognize the man approaching the front door at all.
Then he suddenly uttered a shout which brought the housemaid from her dusting in the hall.
“Major Dale! what is it, please? Can I do anything for you?” asked the girl, her hand upon her heart.
“Great glory! did I scare you, Mina?” he demanded. “Well! I’m pretty near scared myself. Leastways, I am amazed. Run down and open the door for Mr. Knapp—and bring him right up here.”
“Mr. Knapp!” cried the maid, and was awayon swift feet, for Garry had endeared himself to the serving people as well as to the family during his brief stay at The Cedars.
The young man threw aside his outer clothing in haste and ran upstairs to the major’s room. Dorothy’s father had got up in his excitement and was waiting for him with eager eyes.
“Garry! Garry Knapp!” he exclaimed. “What has happened? What has brought you back here, my dear boy?”
Garry was smiling, but it was a grave smile. Indeed, something dwelt in the young man’s eyes that the major had never seen before.
“What is it?” repeated the old gentleman, as he seized Garry’s hand.
“Major, I’ve come to ask a favor,” blurted out the Westerner.
“A favor—and at last?” cried Major Dale. “It is granted.”
“Wait till you hear what it is—all of it. First I want you to call our bargain off.”
“What? You don’t want to sell your ranch?” gasped the major.
“No, sir. Things have—well, have changed a bit. My ranch is something that I must not sell, for I can see a way now to work it myself.”
“You can, my boy? You can develop it? Then the bargain’s off!” cried the major. “I only want to see you successful.”
“Thank you, sir. You are more than kind—kinder than I have any reason to expect. And I presume you think me a fellow of fluctuating intentions, eh?” and he laughed shortly.
“I am waiting to hear about that, Garry,” said the major, eyeing him intently.
With a thrill in his voice that meant joy, yet with eyes that were frankly bedimmed with tears, Garry Knapp put a paper into Major Dale’s hand, saying:
“Read that, Major,—read that and tell me what you think of it.”