XITHE DEATH-GRAPPLE
There was something so sinister in the rider’s disregard of stone and tree and pace, something so menacing in the forward thrust of his body, that Berrie was able to divine his wrath, and was smitten into irresolution—all her hardy, boyish self-reliance swallowed up in the weakness of the woman. She forgot the pistol at her belt, and awaited the assault with rigid pose.
As Belden neared them Norcross also perceived that the rider’s face was distorted with passion, and that his glance was not directed upon Berrie, but upon himself, and he braced himself for the attack.
Leaving his saddle with one flying leap, which the cowboy practises at play, Belden hurled himself upon his rival with the fury of a panther.
The slender youth went down before the big rancher as though struck by a catapult; and the force of his fall against the stony earth stunned him so that he lay beneath his enemy as helpless as a child.
THE SLENDER YOUTH WENT DOWN BEFORE THE BIG RANCHER AS THOUGH STRUCK BY A CATAPULT
THE SLENDER YOUTH WENT DOWN BEFORE THE BIG RANCHER AS THOUGH STRUCK BY A CATAPULT
Belden snarled between his teeth: “I told you I’d kill you, and I will.”
But this was not to be. Berea suddenly recovered her native force. With a cry of pain, of anger, she flung herself on the maddened man’s back. Her hands encircled his neck like a collar of bronze. Hardened by incessant use of the cinch and the rope, her fingers sank into the sinews of his great throat, shutting off both blood and breath.
“Let go!” she commanded, with deadly intensity. “Let go, or I’ll choke the life out of you! Let go, I say!”
He raised a hand to beat her off, but she was too strong, too desperate to be driven away. She was as blind to pain as a mother eagle, and bent above him so closely that he could not bring the full weight of his fist to bear. With one determined hand still clutching his throat, she ran the fingers of her other hand into his hair and twisted his head upward with a power which he could not resist. And so, looking into his upturned, ferocious eyes, she repeated with remorseless fury: “Let go, I say!”
His swollen face grew rigid, his mouth gaped, his tongue protruded, and at last, releasing his hold on his victim, he rose, flinging Berrie off with a final desperate effort. “I’ll kill you, too!” he gasped.
Up to this moment the girl had felt no fear of herself; but now she resorted to other weapons. Snatching her pistol from its holster, she leveled it at his forehead. “Stop!” she said; and something in her voice froze him into calm. He was not a fiend; he was not a deliberate assassin; he was only a jealous, despairing, insane lover, and as he looked into the face he knew so well, and realized that nothing but hate and deadly resolution lit the eyes he had so often kissed, his heart gave way, and, dropping his head, he said: “Kill me if you want to. I’ve nothing left to live for.”
There was something unreal, appalling in this sudden reversion to weakness, and Berrie could not credit his remorse. “Give me your gun,” she said.
He surrendered it to her and she threw it aside; then turned to Wayland, who was lying white and still with face upturned to the sky. With a moan of anguish she bent above him and called upon his name. He did not stir, and when she lifted his head to her lap his hair, streaming with blood, stained her dress. She kissed him and called again to him, then turned with accusing frenzy to Belden: “You’ve killed him! Do you hear? You’ve killed him!”
The agony, the fury of hate in her voice reached the heart of the conquered man. Heraised his head and stared at her with mingled fear and remorse. And so across that limp body these two souls, so lately lovers, looked into each other’s eyes as though nothing but words of hate and loathing had ever passed between them. The girl saw in him only a savage, vengeful, bloodthirsty beast; the man confronted in her an accusing angel.
“I didn’t mean to kill him,” he muttered.
“Yes, you did! You meant it. You crushed his life out with your big hands—and now I’m going to kill you for it!”
A fierce calm had come upon her. Some far-off ancestral deep of passion called for blood revenge. She lifted the weapon with steady hand and pointed it at his heart.
His fear passed as his wrath had passed. His head drooped, his glance wavered. “Shoot!” he commanded, sullenly. “I’d sooner die than live—now.”
His words, his tone, brought back to her a vision of the man he had seemed when she first met and admired him. Her hand fell, the woman in her reasserted itself. A wave of weakness, of indecision, of passionate grief overwhelmed her. “Oh, Cliff!” she moaned. “Why did you do it? He was so gentle and sweet.”
He did not answer. His glance wandered to his horse, serenely cropping the grass in utterdisregard of this tumultuous human drama; but the wind, less insensate than the brute, swept through the grove of dwarfed, distorted pines with a desolate, sympathetic moan which filled the man’s heart with a new and exalted sorrow. “You’re right,” he said. “I was crazy. I deserve killing.”
But Berrie was now too deep in her own desolation to care what he said or did. She kissed the cold lips of the still youth, murmuring passionately: “I don’t care to live without you—I shall go with you!”
Belden’s hand was on her wrist before she could raise her weapon. “Don’t, for God’s sake, don’t do that! He may not be dead.”
She responded but dully to the suggestion. “No, no. He’s gone. His breath is gone.”
“Maybe not. Let me see.”
Again she bent to the quiet face on which the sunlight fell with mocking splendor. It seemed all a dream till she felt once more the stain of his blood upon her hands. It was all so incredibly sudden. Only just now he was exulting over the warmth and beauty of the day—and now—
How beautiful he was. He seemed asleep. The conies crying from their runways suddenly took on poignant pathos. They appeared to be grieving with her; but the eagles spoke of revenge.
A sharp cry, a note of joy sprang from her lips. “Heisalive! I saw his eyelids quiver—quick! Bring some water.”
The man leaped to his feet, and, running down to the pool, filled his sombrero with icy water. He was as eager now to save his rival as he had been mad to destroy him. “Let me help,” he pleaded. But she would not permit him to touch the body.
Again, while splashing the water upon his face, the girl called upon her love to return. “He hears me!” she exulted to her enemy. “He is breathing now. He is opening his eyes.”
The wounded man did, indeed, open his eyes, but his look was a blank, uncomprehending stare, which plunged her back into despair. “He don’t know me!” she said, with piteous accent. She now perceived the source of the blood upon her arm. It came from a wound in the boy’s head which had been dashed upon a stone.
The sight of this wound brought back the blaze of accusing anger to her eyes. “See what you did!” she said, with cold malignity. Then by sudden shift she bent to the sweet face in her arms and kissed it passionately. “Open your eyes, darling. You must not die! I won’t let you die! Can’t you hear me? Don’t you know where you are?”
He opened his eyes once more, quietly, andlooked up into her face with a faint, drowsy smile. He could not yet locate himself in space and time, but he knew her and was comforted. He wondered why he should be looking up into a sunny sky. He heard the wind and the sound of a horse cropping grass, and the voice of the girl penetratingly sweet as that of a young mother calling her baby back to life, and slowly his benumbed brain began to resolve the mystery.
Belden, forgotten, ignored as completely as the conies, sat with choking throat and smarting eyes. For him the world was only dust and ashes—a ruin which his own barbaric spirit had brought upon itself.
Slowly the youth’s eyes took on expression. “Are we still on the hill?” he asked.
“Yes, dearest,” she assured him. Then to Belden, “He knows where he is!”
Wayland again struggled with reality. “What has happened to me?”
“You fell and hurt your head.”
He turned slightly and observed the other man looking down at her with dark and tragic glance. “Hello, Belden,” he said, feebly. “How came you here?” Then noting Berrie’s look, he added: “I remember. He tried to kill me.” He again searched his antagonist’s face. “Why didn’t you finish the job?”
The girl tried to turn his thought aside. “It’sall right now, darling. He won’t make any more trouble. Don’t mind him. I don’t care for anybody now you are coming back to me.”
Wayland wonderingly regarded the face of the girl. “And you—are you hurt?”
“No, I’m not hurt. I am perfectly happy now.” She turned to Belden with quick, authoritative command. “Unsaddle the horses and set up the tent. We won’t be able to leave here to-night.”
He rose with instant obedience, glad of a chance to serve her, and soon had the tent pegged to its place and the bedding unrolled. Together they lifted the wounded youth and laid him upon his blankets beneath the low canvas roof which seemed heavenly helpful to Berea.
“There!” she said, caressingly. “Now you are safe, no matter whether it rains or not.”
He smiled. “It seems I’m to have my way after all. I hope I shall be able to see the sun rise. I’ve sort of lost my interest in the sunset.”
“Now, Cliff,” she said, as soon as the camp was in order and a fire started, “I reckon you’d better ride on. I haven’t any further use for you.”
“Don’t say that, Berrie,” he pleaded. “I can’t leave you here alone with a sick man. Let me stay and help.”
She looked at him for a long time before she replied. “I shall never be able to look at you again without hating you,” she said. “I shall always remember you as you looked when you were killing that boy. So you’d better ride on and keep a-riding. I’m going to forget all this just as soon as I can, and it don’t help me any to have you around. I never want to see you or hear your name again.”
“You don’t mean that, Berrie!”
“Yes, I do,” she asserted, bitterly. “I mean just that. So saddle up and pull out. All I ask of you is to say nothing about what has happened here. You’d better leave the state. If Wayland should get worse it might go hard with you.”
He accepted his banishment. “All right. If you feel that way I’ll ride. But I’d like to do something for you before I go. I’ll pile up some wood—”
“No. I’ll take care of that.” And without another word of farewell she turned away and re-entered the tent.
Mounting his horse with painful slowness, as though suddenly grown old, the reprieved assassin rode away up the mountain, his head low, his eyes upon the ground.
XIIBERRIE’S VIGIL
The situation in which Berea now found herself would have disheartened most women of mature age, but she remained not only composed, she was filled with an irrational delight. The nurse that is in every woman was aroused in her, and she looked forward with joy to a night of vigil, confident that Wayland was not seriously injured and that he would soon be able to ride. She had no fear of the forest or of the night. Nature held no menace now that her tent was set and her fire alight.
Wayland, without really knowing anything about it, suspected that he owed his life to her intervention, and this belief deepened the feeling of admiration which he had hitherto felt toward her. He listened to her at work around the fire with a deepening sense of his indebtedness to her, and when she looked in to ask if she could do anything for him, his throat filled with an emotion which rendered his answer difficult.
As his mind cleared he became very curious to know precisely what had taken place, but hedid not feel free to ask her. “She will tell me if she wishes me to know.” That she had vanquished Belden and sent him on his way was evident, although he had not been able to hear what she had said to him at the last. What lay between the enemy’s furious onslaught and the aid he lent in making the camp could only be surmised. “I wonder if she used her pistol?” Wayland asked himself. “Something like death must have stared him in the face.”
“Strange how everything seems to throw me ever deeper into her debt,” he thought, a little later. But he did not quite dare put into words the resentment which mingled with his gratitude. He hated to be put so constantly into the position of the one protected, defended. And yet it was his own fault. He had put himself among people and conditions where she was the stronger. Having ventured out of his world into hers he must take the consequences.
That she loved him with the complete passion of her powerful and simple nature he knew, for her voice had reached through the daze of his semi-unconsciousness with thrilling power. The touch of her lips to his, the close clasp of her strong arms were of ever greater convincing quality. And yet he wished the revelation had come in some other way. His pride was abraded. His manhood seemed somehow lessened. It wasa disconcerting reversal of the ordinary relations between hero and heroine, and he saw no way of re-establishing the normal attitude of the male.
Entirely unaware of what was passing in the mind of her patient, Berrie went about her duties with a cheerfulness which astonished the sufferer in the tent. She seemed about to hum a song as she set the skillet on the fire, but a moment later she called out, in a tone of irritation: “Here comes Nash!”
“I’m glad of that,” answered Wayland, although he perceived something of her displeasure.
Nash, on his way to join the Supervisor, raised a friendly greeting as he saw the girl, and drew rein. “I expected to meet you farther down the hill,” he said. “Tony ’phoned that you had started. Where did you leave the Supervisor?”
“Over at the station waiting for you. Where’s your outfit?”
“Camped down the trail a mile or so. I thought I’d better push through to-night. What about Norcross? Isn’t he with you?”
She hesitated an instant. “He’s in the tent. He fell and struck his head on a rock, and I had to go into camp here.”
Nash was deeply concerned. “Is that so? Well, that’s hard luck. Is he badly hurt?”
“Well, he had a terrible fall. But he’s easier now. I think he’s asleep.”
“May I look in on him?”
“I don’t think you’d better take the time. It’s a long, hard ride from here to the station. It will be deep night before you can make it—”
“Don’t you think the Supervisor would want me to camp here to-night and do what I could for you? If Norcross is badly injured you will need me.”
She liked Nash, and she knew he was right, and yet she was reluctant to give up the pleasure of her lone vigil. “He’s not in any danger, and we’ll be able to ride on in the morning.”
Nash, thinking of her as Clifford Belden’s promised wife, had no suspicion of her feeling toward Norcross. Therefore he gently urged that to go on was quite out of order. “Ican’tthink of leaving you here alone—certainly not till I see Norcross and find out how badly he is hurt.”
She yielded. “I reckon you’re right,” she said. “I’ll go see if he is awake.”
He followed her to the door of the tent, apprehending something new and inexplicable in her attitude. In the music of her voice as she spoke to the sick man was the love-note of the mate. “You may come in,” she called back, and Nash, stooping, entered the small tent.
“Hello, old man, what you been doing with yourself? Hitting the high spots?”
Norcross smiled feebly. “No, the hill flew up and bumpedme.”
“How did it all happen?”
“I don’t exactly know. It all came of a sudden. I had no share in it—I didn’t go for to do it.”
“Whether you did or not, you seem to have made a good job of it.”
Nash examined the wounded man carefully, and his skill and strength in handling Norcross pleased Berrie, though she was jealous of the warm friendship which seemed to exist between the men.
She had always liked Nash, but she resented him now, especially as he insisted on taking charge of the case; but she gave way finally, and went back to her pots and pans with pensive countenance.
A little later, when Nash came out to make report, she was not very gracious in her manner. “He’s pretty badly hurt,” he said. “There’s an ugly gash in his scalp, and the shock has produced a good deal of pain and confusion in his head; but he’s going to be all right in a day or two. For a man seeking rest and recuperation he certainly has had a tough run of weather.”
Though a serious-minded, honorable forester, determined to keep sternly in mind that he was in the presence of the daughter of his chief, andthat she was engaged to marry another, Nash was, after all, a man, and the witchery of the hour, the charm of the girl’s graceful figure, asserted their power over him. His eyes grew tender, and his voice eloquent in spite of himself. His words he could guard, but it was hard to keep from his speech the song of the lover. The thought that he was to camp in her company, to help her about the fire, to see her from moment to moment, with full liberty to speak to her, to meet her glance, pleased him. It was the most romantic and moving episode in his life, and though of a rather dry and analytic temperament he had a sense of poesy.
The night, black, oppressive, and silent, brought a closer bond of mutual help and understanding between them. He built a fire of dry branches close to the tent door, and there sat, side by side with the girl, in the glow of embers, so close to the injured youth that they could talk together, and as he spoke freely, yet modestly, of his experiences Berrie found him more deeply interesting than she had hitherto believed him to be. True, he saw things less poetically than Wayland, but he was finely observant, and a man of studious and refined habits.
She grew friendlier, and asked him about his work, and especially about his ambitions and plans for the future. They discussed the forestand its enemies, and he wondered at her freedom in speaking of the Mill and saloon. He said: “Of course you know that Alec Belden is a partner in that business, and I’m told—of course I don’t know this—that Clifford Belden is also interested.”
She offered no defense of young Belden, and this unconcern puzzled him. He had expected indignant protest, but she merely replied: “I don’t care who owns it. It should be rooted out. I hate that kind of thing. It’s just another way of robbing those poor tie-jacks.”
“Clifford should get out of it. Can’t you persuade him to do so?”
“I don’t think I can.”
“His relationship to you—”
“He is not related to me.”
Her tone amazed him. “You know what I mean.”
“Of course I do, but you’re mistaken. We’re not related that way any longer.”
This silenced him for a few moments, then he said: “I’m rather glad of that. He isn’t anything like the man you thought he was—I couldn’t say these things before—but he is as greedy as Alec, only not so open about it.”
All this comment, which moved the forester so deeply to utter, seemed not to interest Berea. She sat staring at the fire with the calm brow ofan Indian. Clifford Belden had passed out of her life as completely as he had vanished out of the landscape. She felt an immense relief at being rid of him, and resented his being brought back even as a subject of conversation.
Wayland, listening, fancied he understood her desire, and said nothing that might arouse Nash’s curiosity.
Nash, on his part, knowing that she had broken with Belden, began to understand the tenderness, the anxious care of her face and voice, as she bent above young Norcross. As the night deepened and the cold air stung, he asked: “Have you plenty of blankets for a bed?”
“Oh yes,” she answered, “but I don’t intend to sleep.”
“Oh, you must!” he declared. “Go to bed. I will keep the fire going.”
At last she consented. “I will make my bed right here at the mouth of the tent close to the fire,” she said, “and you can call me if you need me.”
“Why not put your bed in the tent? It’s going to be cold up here.”
“I am all right outside,” she protested.
“Put your bed inside, Miss Berrie. We can’t let conventions count above timber-line. I shall rest better if I know you are properly sheltered.”
And so it happened that for the third time she shared the same roof with her lover; but the nurse was uppermost in her now. At eleven thousand feet above the sea—with a cold drizzle of fine rain in the air—one does not consider the course of gossip as carefully as in a village, and Berrie slept unbrokenly till daylight.
Nash was the first to arise in the dusk of dawn, and Berrie, awakened by the crackle of his fire, soon joined him. There is no sweeter sound than the voice of the flame at such a time, in such a place. It endows the bleak mountainside with comfort, makes the ledge a hearthstone. It holds the promise of savory meats and fragrant liquor, and robs the frosty air of its terrors.
Wayland, hearing their voices, called out, with feeble humor: “Will some one please turn on the steam in my room?”
Berrie uttered a happy word. “How do you feel this morning?” she asked.
“Not precisely like a pugilist—well, yes, I believe I do—like the fellow who got second money.”
“How is the bump?” inquired Nash, thrusting his head inside the door.
“Reduced to the size of a golf-ball as near as I can judge of it. I doubt if I can wear a hat; but I’m feeling fine. I’m going to get up.”
Berrie was greatly relieved. “I’m so glad! Do you feel like riding down the hill?”
“Sure thing! I’m hungry, and as soon as I am fed I’m ready to start.”
Berrie joined the surveyor at the fire.
“If you’ll round up our horses, Mr. Nash, I’ll rustle breakfast and we’ll get going,” she said.
Nash, enthralled, lingered while she twisted her hair into place, then went out to bring in the ponies.
Wayland came out a little uncertainly, but looking very well. “I think I shall discourage my friends from coming to this region for their health,” he said, ruefully. “If I were a novelist now all this would be grist for my mill.”
Beneath his joking he was profoundly chagrined. He had hoped by this time to be as sinewy, as alert as Nash, instead of which here he sat, shivering over the fire like a sick girl, his head swollen, his blood sluggish; but this discouragement only increased Berea’s tenderness—a tenderness which melted all his reserve.
“I’m not worth all your care,” he said to her, with poignant glance.
The sun rose clear and warm, and the fire, the coffee, put new courage into him as well as into the others, and while the morning was yet early and the forest chill and damp with rain, the surveyor brought up the horses and started packing the outfit.
In this Berrie again took part, doing her halfof the work quite as dextrously as Nash himself. Indeed, the forester was noticeably confused and not quite up to his usual level of adroit ease.
At last both packs were on, and as they stood together for a moment, Nash said: “This has been a great experience—one I shall remember as long as I live.”
She stirred uneasily under his frank admiration. “I’m mightily obliged to you,” she replied, as heartily as she could command.
“Don’t thank me, I’m indebted to you. There is so little in my life of such companionship as you and Norcross give me.”
“You’ll find it lonesome over at the station, I’m afraid,” said she. “But Moore intends to put a crew of tie-cutters in over there—that will help some.” She smiled.
“I’m not partial to the society of tie-jacks.”
“If you ride hard you may find that Moore girl in camp. She was there when we left.” There was a sparkle of mischief in her glance.
“I’m not interested in the Moore girl,” he retorted.
“Do you know her?”
“I’ve seen her at the post-office once or twice;sheis not my kind.”
She gave him her hand. “Well, good-by. I’m all right now that Wayland can ride.”
He held her hand an instant. “I believe I’ll ride back with you as far as the camp.”
“You’d better go on. Father is waiting for you. I’ll send the men along.” There was dismissal in her voice, and yet she recognized as never before the fine qualities that were his. “Please don’t say anything of this to others, and tell my father not to worry about us. We’ll pull in all right.”
He helped Norcross mount his horse, and as he put the lead rope into Berrie’s hand, he said: with much feeling: “Good luck to you. I shall remember this night all the rest of my life.”
“I hate to be going to the rear,” called Wayland, whose bare, bandaged head made him look like a wounded young officer. “But I guess it’s better for me to lay off for a week or two and recover my tone.”
And so they parted, the surveyor riding his determined way up the naked mountainside toward the clouds, while Berrie and her ward plunged at once into the dark and dripping forest below. “If you can stand the grief,” she said, “we’ll go clear through.”
Wayland had his misgivings, but did not say so. His confidence in his guide was complete. She would do her part, that was certain. Several times she was forced to dismount and blaze out a new path in order to avoid some bog; but shesternly refused his aid. “You must not get off,” she warned; “stay where you are. I can do this work better alone.”
They were again in that green, gloomy, and silent zone of the range, where giant spruces grow, and springs, oozing from the rocks, trickle over the trail. It was very beautiful, but menacing, by reason of its apparently endless thickets cut by stony ridges. It was here she met the two young men, Downing and Travis, bringing forward the surveying outfit, but she paused only to say: “Push along steadily. You are needed on the other side.”
After leaving the men, and with a knowledge that the remaining leagues of the trail were solitary, Norcross grew fearful. “The fall of a horse, an accident to that brave girl, and we would be helpless,” he thought. “I wish Nash had returned with us.” Once his blood chilled with horror as he watched his guide striking out across the marge of a grassy lake. This meadow, as he divined, was really a carpet of sod floating above a bottomless pool of muck, for it shook beneath her horse’s feet.
“Come on, it’s all right,” she called back, cheerily. “We’ll soon pick up the other trail.”
He wondered how she knew, for to him each hill was precisely like another, each thicket a maze.
Her caution was all for him. She tried each dangerous slough first, and thus was able to advise him which way was safest. His head throbbed with pain and his knees were weary, but he rode on, manifesting such cheer as he could, resolving not to complain at any cost; but his self-respect ebbed steadily, leaving him in bitter, silent dejection.
At last they came into open ground on a high ridge, and were gladdened by the valley outspread below them, for it was still radiant with color, though not as brilliant as before the rain. It had been dimmed, but not darkened. And yet it seemed that a month had passed since their ecstatic ride upward through the golden forest, and Wayland said as much while they stood for a moment surveying the majestic park with its wall of guardian peaks.
But Berrie replied: “It seems only a few hours to me.”
From this point the traveling was good, and they descended rapidly, zigzagging from side to side of a long, sweeping ridge. By noon they were once more down amid the aspens, basking in a world of sad gold leaves and delicious September sunshine.
At one o’clock, on the bank of a clear stream, the girl halted. “I reckon we’d better camp awhile. You look tired, and I am hungry.”
He gratefully acquiesced in this stop, for his knees were trembling with the strain of the stirrups; but he would not permit her to ease him down from his saddle. Turning a wan glance upon her, he bitterly asked: “Must I always play the weakling before you? I am ashamed of myself. Ride on and leave me to rot here in the grass. I’m not worth keeping alive.”
“You must not talk like that,” she gently admonished him. “You’re not to blame.”
“Yes, I am. I should never have ventured into this man’s country.”
“I’m glad you did,” she answered, as if she were comforting a child. “For if you hadn’t I should never have known you.”
“That would have been no loss—to you,” he bitterly responded.
She unsaddled one pack-animal and spread some blankets on the grass. “Lie down and rest while I boil some coffee,” she commanded; and he obeyed, too tired to make pretension toward assisting.
Lying so, feeling the magic of the sun, hearing the music of the water, and watching the girl, he regained a serener mood, and when she came back with his food he thanked her for it with a glance before which her eyes fell. “I don’t see why you are so kind to me, I really believe youliketo do things for me.” Her head drooped to hide her face, and he went on: “Why do you care for me? Tell me!”
“I don’t know,” she murmured. Then she added, with a flash of bravery: “But I do.”
“What a mystery it all is! You turn from a splendid fellow like Landon to a ‘skate’ like me. Landon worships you—you know that—don’t you?”
“I know—he—” she ended, vaguely distressed.
“Did he ask you to marry him?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you? He’s just the mate for you. He’s a man of high character and education.” She made no answer to this, and he went on: “Dear girl, I’m not worth your care—truly I’m not. I resented your engagement to Belden, for he was a brute; but Landon is different. He thinks the world of you. He’ll go high in the service. I’ve never done anything in the world—I never shall. It will be better for you if I go—to-morrow.”
She took his hand and pressed it to her cheek, then, putting her arm about his neck, drew him to her bosom and kissed him passionately. “You break my heart when you talk like that,” she protested, with tears. “You mustn’t say such gloomy things—I won’t let you give up. You shall come right home with me, and I will nurseyou till you are well. It was all my fault. If we had only stayed in camp at the lake daddy would have joined us that night, and if I had not loitered on the mountain yesterday Cliff would not have overtaken us. It’s all my fault.”
“I will not have it go that way,” he said. “I’ve brought you only care and unhappiness thus far. I’m an alien—my ways are not your ways.”
“I can change,” she answered. “I hate my ways, and I like yours.”
As they argued she felt no shame, and he voiced no resentment. She knew his mood. She understood his doubt, his depression. She pleaded as a man might have done, ready to prove her love, eager to restore his self-respect, while he remained both bitter and sadly contemptuous.
A cow-hand riding up the trail greeted Berrie respectfully, but a cynical smile broke out on his lips as he passed on. Another witness—another gossip.
She did not care. She had no further concern of the valley’s comment. Her life’s happiness hung on the drooping eyelashes of this wounded boy, and to win him back to cheerful acceptance of life was her only concern.
“I’ve never had any motives,” he confessed. “I’ve always done what pleased me at the moment—orbecause it was easier to do as others were doing. I went to college that way. Truth is, I never had any surplus vitality, and my father never demanded anything of me. I haven’t any motives now. A few days ago I was interested in forestry. At this time it all seems futile. What’s the use of my trying to live?”
Part of all this despairing cry arose from weariness, and part from a luxurious desire to be comforted, for it was sweet to feel her sympathy. He even took a morbid pleasure in the distress of her eyes and lips while her rich voice murmured in soothing protest.
She, on her part, was frightened for him, and as she thought of the long ride still before them she wrung her hands. “Oh, what shall I do? What shall I do?” she moaned.
Instantly smitten into shame, into manlier mood, he said: “Don’t worry about me, please don’t. I can ride. I’m feeling better. You must not weaken. Please forgive my selfish complaints. I’m done! You’ll never hear it again. Come, let us go on. I can ride.”
“If we can reach Miller’s ranch—”
“I can ride toyourranch,” he declared, and rose with such new-found resolution that she stared at him in wonder.
He was able to smile. “I’ve had my littlecrying spell. I’ve relieved my heart of its load. I didn’t mean to agonize you. It was only a slump.” He put his hand to his head. “I must be a comical figure. Wonder what that cowboy thought of me?”
His sudden reversal to cheer was a little alarming to her, but at length she perceived that he had in truth mastered his depression, and bringing up the horses she saddled them, and helped him to mount. “If you get tired or feel worse, tell me, and we’ll go into camp,” she urged as they were about to start.
“You keep going till I give the sign,” he replied; and his voice was so firm and clear that her own sunny smile came back. “I don’t know what to make of you,” she said. “I reckon you must be a poet.”
XIIITHE GOSSIPS AWAKE
It was dark when they reached the village, but Wayland declared his ability to go on, although his wounded head was throbbing with fever and he was clinging to the pommel of his saddle; so Berrie rode on.
Mrs. McFarlane, hearing the horses on the bridge, was at the door and received her daughter with wondering question, while the stable-hands, quick to detect an injured man, hurried to lift Norcross down from his saddle.
“What’s the matter?” repeated Mrs. McFarlane.
“He fell and struck his head on a stone,” Berea hastily explained. “Take the horses, boys, mother and I will look out for Mr. Norcross.”
The men obeyed her and fell back, but they were consumed with curiosity, and their glances irritated the girl. “Slip the packs at once,” she insisted.
With instant sympathy her mother came to her aid in supporting the wounded, weary youth indoors, and as he stretched out on the couchin the sitting-room, he remarked, with a faint, ironic smile: “This beats any bed of balsam boughs.”
“Where’s your father?” asked Mrs. McFarlane of her daughter.
“He’s over on the Ptarmigan. I’ve a powerful lot to tell you, mother; but not now; we must look after Wayland. He’s nearly done up, and so am I.”
Mrs. McFarlane winced a little at her daughter’s use of Norcross’s first name, but she said nothing further at the moment, although she watched Berrie closely while she took off Wayland’s shoes and stockings and rubbed his icy feet. “Get him something hot as quick as you can!” she commanded; and Mrs. McFarlane obeyed without a word.
Gradually the tremor passed out of his limbs and a delicious sense of warmth, of safety, stole over him, and he closed his eyes in the comfort of her presence and care. “Rigorous business this life of the pioneer,” he said, with mocking inflection. “I think I prefer a place in the lumber trust.”
“Don’t talk,” she said. Then, with a rush of tender remorse: “Why didn’t you tell me to stop? I didn’t realize that you were so tired. We could have stopped at the Springs.”
“I didn’t know how tired I was till I got here.Gee,” he said, boyishly, “that door-knob at the back of my head is red-hot! You’re good to me,” he added, humbly.
She hated to have him resume that tone of self-depreciation, and, kneeling to him, she kissed his cheek, and laid her head beside his. “You’re splendid,” she insisted. “Nobody could be braver; but you should have told me you were exhausted. You fooled me with your cheerful answers.”
He accepted her loving praise, her clasping arms, as a part of the rescue from the darkness and pain of the long ride, careless of what it might bring to him in the future. He ate his toast and drank his coffee, and permitted the women to lead him to his room, and then being alone he crept into his bed and fell instantly asleep.
Berrie and her mother went back to the sitting-room, and Mrs. McFarlane closed the door behind them. “Now tell me all about it,” she said, in the tone of one not to be denied.
The story went along very smoothly till the girl came to the second night in camp beside the lake; there her voice faltered, and the reflective look in the mother’s eyes deepened as she learned that her daughter had shared her tent with the young man. “It was the only thing to do, mother,” Berrie bravely said. “It wascold and wet outside, and you know he isn’t very strong, and his teeth were chattering, he was so chilled. I know it sounds strange down here; but up there in the woods in the storm what I did seemed right and natural. You know what I mean, don’t you?”
“Yes, I understand. I don’t blame you—only—if others should hear of it—”
“But they won’t. No one knows of our being alone there except Tony and father.”
“Are you sure? Doesn’t Mrs. Belden know?”
“I don’t think so—not yet.”
Mrs. McFarlane’s nervousness grew. “I wish you hadn’t gone on this trip. If the Beldens find out you were alone with Mr. Norcross they’ll make much of it. It will give them a chance at your father.” Her mind turned upon another point. “When did Mr. Norcross get his fall?”
“On the way back.” Here Berrie hesitated again. “I don’t like to tell you, mother, but he didn’t fall, Cliff jumped him and tried to kill him.”
The mother doubted her ears. “Cliff did? How did he happen to meet you?”
Berrie was quick to answer. “I don’t know how he found out we were on the trail. I suppose the old lady ’phoned him. Anyhow, while we were camped for noon yesterday”—her faceflamed again at thought of that tender, beautiful moment when they were resting on the grass—“while we were at our lunch he came tearing down the hill on that big bay horse of his and took a flying jump at Wayland. As Wayland went down he struck his head on a stone. I thought he was dead, and I was paralyzed for a second. Then I flew at Cliff and just about choked the life out of him. I’d have ended him right there if he hadn’t let go.”
Mrs. McFarlane, looking upon her daughter in amazement, saw on her face the shadow of the deadly rage which had burned in her heart as she clenched young Belden’s throat.
“What then? What happened then?”
“He let go, you bet.” Her smile came back. “And when he realized what he’d done—hethought Wayland was dead—he began to weaken. Then I took my gun and was all for putting an end to him right there, when I saw Wayland’s eyelids move. After that I didn’t care what became of Cliff. I told him to ride on and keep a-ridin’, and I reckon he’s clear out of the state by this time. If he ever shows up I’ll put him where he’ll have all night to be sorry in.”
“When did this take place?”
“Yesterday about two. Of course Wayland couldn’t ride, he was so dizzy and kind o’ confused, and so I went into camp right there attimber-line. Along about sunset Nash came riding up from this side, and insisted on staying to help me—so I let him.”
Mrs. McFarlane’s tense attitude relaxed. “Nash is not the kind that tattles. I’m glad he turned up.”
“And this morning I saddled and came down.”
“Did Nash go on?”
“Yes, daddy was waiting for him, so I sent him along.”
“It’s all sad business,” groaned Mrs. McFarlane, “and I can see you’re keeping something back. How did Cliff happen to know just where you were? And what started you back without your father?”
For the first time Berrie showed signs of weakness and distress. “Why, you see, Alec Belden and Mr. Moore were over there to look at some timber, and old Marm Belden and that Moore girl went along. I suppose they sent word to Cliff, and I presume that Moore girl put him on our trail. Leastwise that’s the way I figure it out. That’s the worst of the whole business.” She admitted this with darkened brow. “Mrs. Belden’s tongue is hung in the middle and loose at both ends—and that Moore girl is spiteful mean.” She could not keep the contempt out of her voice. “She saw us start off, and she is sure to follow it up and find outwhat happened on the way home; even if they don’t see Cliff they’lltalk.”
“Oh, Iwishyou hadn’t gone!” exclaimed the worried mother.
“It can’t be helped now, and it hasn’t done me any real harm. It’s all in the day’s work, anyhow. I’ve always gone with daddy before, and this trip isn’t going to spoil me. The boys all know me, and they will treat me fair.”
“Yes, but Mr. Norcross is an outsider—a city man. They will all think evil of him on that account.”
“I know; that’s what troubles me. No one will know how fine and considerate he was. Mother, I’ve never known any one like him. He’s a poet! He’s taught me to see things I never saw before. Everything interests him—the birds, the clouds, the voices in the fire. I never was so happy in my life as I was during those first two days, and that night in camp before he began to worry—it was just wonderful.” Words failed her, but her shining face and the forward straining pose of her body enlightened the mother. “I don’t care what people say of me if only they will be just to him. They’vegotto treat him right,” she added, firmly.
“Did he speak to you—are you engaged?”
Her head drooped. “Not really engaged, mother; but he told me how much he likedme—and—it’s all right, mother, Iknowit is. I’m not fine enough for him, but I’m going to try to change my ways so he won’t be ashamed of me.”
Mrs. McFarlane’s face cleared. “He surely is a fine young fellow, and can be trusted to do the right thing. Well, we might as well go to bed. We can’t settle anything till your father gets home,” she said.
Wayland rose next morning free from dizziness and almost free from pain, and when he came out of his room his expression was cheerful. “I feel as if I’d slept a week, and I’m hungry. I don’t know why I should be, but I am.”
Mrs. McFarlane met him with something very intimate, something almost maternal in her look; but her words were as few and as restrained as ever. He divined that she had been talking with Berrie, and that a fairly clear understanding of the situation had been reached. That this understanding involved him closely he was aware; but nothing in his manner acknowledged it.
She did not ask any questions, believing that sooner or later the whole story must come out. The fact that Siona Moore and Mrs. Belden knew that Berrie had started back on Thursday with young Norcross made it easy for the villagers to discover that she had not reached the ranch till Saturday. “What could Joe have been thinking of to allow them to go?” shesaid. “Mr. Nash’s presence in the camp must be made known; but then there is Clifford’s assault upon Mr. Norcross, can that be kept secret, too?” And so while the young people chatted, the troubled mother waited in fear, knowing that in a day or two the countryside would be aflame with accusation.
In a landscape like this, as she well knew, nothing moves unobserved. The native—man or woman—is able to perceive and name objects scarcely discernible to the eye of the alien. A minute speck is discovered on the hillside. “Hello, there’s Jim Sanders on his roan,” says one, or “Here comes Kit Jenkins with her flea-bit gray. I wonder who’s on the bay alongside of her,” remarks another, and each of these observations is taken quite as a matter of course. With a wide and empty field of vision, and with trained, unspoiled optic nerves, the plainsman is marvelously penetrating of glance. Hence, Mrs. McFarlane was perfectly certain that not one but several of her neighbors had seen and recognized Berrie and young Norcross as they came down the hill. In a day or two every man would know just where they camped, and what had taken place in camp. Mrs. Belden would not rest till she had ferreted out every crook and turn of that trail, and her speech was quite as coarse as that of any of her male associates.
Easy-going with regard to many things, these citizens were abnormally alive to all matters relating to courtship, and popular as she believed Berrie to be, Mrs. McFarlane could not hope that her daughter would be spared—especially by the Beldens, who would naturally feel that Clifford had been cheated. She sighed deeply. “Well, nothing can be done till Joe returns,” she repeated.
A long day’s rest, a second night’s sleep, set Wayland on his feet. He came to breakfast quite gay. “Barring the hickory-nut on the back of my head,” he explained, “I’m feeling fine, almost ready for another expedition. I may make a ranger yet.”
Berrie, though equally gay, was not so sure of his ability to return to work. “I reckon you’d better go easy till daddy gets back; but if you feel like it we’ll ride up to the post-office this afternoon.”
“I want to start right in to learn to throw that hitch, and I’m going to practise with an ax till I can strike twice in the same place. This trip was an eye-opener. Great man I’d be in a windfall—wouldn’t I?”
He was persuaded to remain very quiet for another day, and part of it was spent in conversation with Mrs. McFarlane—whom he liked very much—and an hour or more in writinga long letter wherein he announced to his father his intention of going into the Forest Service. “I’ve got to build up a constitution,” he said, “and I don’t know of a better place to do it in. Besides, I’m beginning to be interested in the scheme. I like the Supervisor. I’m living in his house at the present time, and I’m feeling contented and happy, so don’t worry about me.”
He was indeed quite comfortable, save when he realized that Mrs. McFarlane was taking altogether too much for granted in their relationship. It was delightful to be so watched over, so waited upon, so instructed. “But where is it all leading me?” he continued to ask himself—and still that wall of reserve troubled and saddened Berrie.
They expected McFarlane that night, and waited supper for him, but he did not come, and so they ate without him, and afterward Wayland helped Berrie do up the dishes while the mother bent above her sewing by the kitchen lamp.
There was something very sweet and gentle about Mrs. McFarlane, and the exile took almost as much pleasure in talking with her as with her daughter. He led her to tell of her early experiences in the valley, and of the strange types of men and women with whom she had crossed the range.
“Some of them are here yet,” she said. “In fact the most violent of all the opponents to the Service are these old adventurers. I don’t think they deserve to be called pioneers. They never did any work in clearing the land or in building homes. Some of them, who own big herds of cattle, still live in dug-outs. They raged at Mr. McFarlane for going into the Service—called him a traitor. Old Jake Proudfoot was especially furious—”
“You should see where old Jake lives,” interrupted Berrie. “He sleeps on the floor in one corner of his cabin, and never changes his shirt.”
“Hush!” warned Mrs. McFarlane.
“That’s what the men all say. Daddy declares if they were to scrape Jake they’d find at least five layers of shirts. His wife left him fifteen years ago, couldn’t stand his habits, and he’s got worse ever since. Naturally he is opposed to the Service.”
“Of course,” her mother explained, “those who oppose the Supervisor aren’t all like Jake; but it makes me angry to have the papers all quoting Jake as ‘one of the leading ranchers of the valley.’”
She could not bring herself to take up the most vital subject of all—the question of her daughter’s future. “I’ll wait till father gets home,” she decided.
On the fourth morning the ’phone rang, and the squawking voice of Mrs. Belden came over the wire. “I wanted to know if Berrie and her feller got home all right?”
“Yes, they arrived safely.”
The old woman chuckled. “Last I see of Cliff he was hot on their trail—looked like he expected to take a hand in that expedition. Did he overtake ’em?”
“I don’t hear very well—where are you?”
“I’m at the Scott ranch—we’re coming round ‘the horn’ to-day.”
“Where is the Supervisor?”
“He headed across yesterday. Say, Cliff was mad as a hornet when he started. I’d like to know what happened—”
Mrs. McFarlane hung up the receiver. The old woman’s nasty chuckle was intolerable; but in silencing the ’phone Mrs. McFarlane was perfectly aware that she was not silencing the gossip; on the contrary, she was certain that the Beldens would leave a trail of poisonous comment from the Ptarmigan to Bear Tooth. It was all sweet material for them.
Berrie wanted to know who was speaking, and Mrs. McFarlane replied: “Mrs. Belden wanted to know if you got through all right.”
“She said something else, something to heat you up,” persisted the girl, who perceived hermother’s agitation. “What did she say—something about me—and Cliff?”
The mother did not answer, for Wayland entered the room at the moment; but Berrie knew that traducers were already busy with her affairs. “I don’t care anything about old lady Belden,” she said, later; “but I hate to have that Moore girl telling lies about me.”
As for Wayland, the nights in the camp by the lake, and, indeed, all the experiences of his trip in the high places were becoming each moment more remote, more unreal. Camp life at timber-line did not seem to him subject to ordinary conventional laws of human conduct, and the fact that he and Berrie had shared the same tent under the stress of cold and snow, now seemed so far away as to be only a complication in a splendid mountain drama. Surely no blame could attach to the frank and generous girl, even though the jealous assault of Cliff Belden should throw the valley into a fever of chatter. “Furthermore, I don’t believe he will be in haste to speak of his share in the play,” he added. “It was too nearly criminal.”
It was almost noon of the fourth day when the Supervisor called up to say that he was at the office, and would reach the ranch at six o’clock.
“I wish you would come home at once,” his wife argued; and something in her voice convincedhim that he was more needed at home, than in the town.
“All right, mother. Hold the fort an hour and I’ll be there.”
Mrs. McFarlane met him at the hitching-bar, and it required but a glance for him to read in her face a troubled state of mind.
“This has been a disastrous trip for Berrie,” she said, after one of the hands had relieved the Supervisor of his horse.
“In what way?”
She was a bit impatient. “Mrs. Belden is filling the valley with the story of Berrie’s stay in camp with Mr. Norcross.”
His face showed a graver line. “It couldn’t be helped. The horses had to be followed, and that youngster couldn’t do it—and, besides, I expected to get back that night. Nobody but an old snoop like Seth Belden would think evil of our girl. And, besides, Norcross is a man to be trusted.”
“Of course he is, but the Beldens are ready to think evil of any one connected with us. And Cliff’s assault on Wayland—”
He looked up quickly. “Assault? Did he make trouble?”
“Yes, he overtook them on the trail, and would have killed Norcross if Berrie hadn’t interfered. He was crazy with jealousy.”
“Nash didn’t say anything about any assault.”
“He didn’t know it. Berrie told him that Norcross fell from his horse.”
McFarlane was deeply stirred. “I saw Cliff leave camp, but I didn’t think anything of it. Why should he jump Norcross?”
“I suppose Mrs. Belden filled him with distrust of Berrie. He was already jealous, and when he came up with them and found them lunching together, he lost his head and rushed at Wayland like a wild beast. Of course he couldn’t stand against a big man like Cliff, and his head struck on a stone; and if Berrie hadn’t throttled the brute he would have murdered the poor boy right there before her eyes.”
“Good God! I never suspected a word of this. I didn’t think he’d do that.”
The Supervisor was now very grave. These domestic matters at once threw his work as forester into the region of vague and unimportant abstractions. He began to understand the danger into which Berea had fallen, and step by step he took up the trails which had brought them all to this pass.
He fixed another penetrating look upon her face, and his voice was vibrant with anxiety as he said: “You don’t think there’s anything—wrong?”
“No, nothing wrong; but she’s profoundly inlove with him. I never have seen her so wrapped up in any one. She thinks of nothing else. It scares me to see it, for I’ve studied him closely and I can’t believe he feels the same toward her. His world is so different from ours. I don’t know what to do or say. I fear she is in for a period of great unhappiness.”
She was at the beginning of tears, and he sought to comfort her. “Don’t worry, honey, she’s got too much horse sense to do anything foolish. She’s grown up. I suppose it’s his being so different from the other boys that catches her. We’ve always been good chums—let me talk with her. She mustn’t make a mistake.”
The return of the crew from the corral cut short this conference, and when McFarlane went in Berrie greeted him with such frank and joyous expression that all his fears vanished.
“Did you come over the high trail?” she asked.
“No, I came your way. I didn’t want to take any chances on getting mired. It’s still raining up there,” he answered, then turned to Wayland: “Here’s your mail, Norcross, a whole hatful of it—and one telegram in the bunch. Hope it isn’t serious.”
Wayland took the bundle of letters and retired to his room, glad to escape the persistent stare of the cow-hands. The despatch was from his father, and was curt and specific as a command:“Shall be in Denver on the 23d, meet me at the Palmer House. Am on my way to California. Come prepared to join me on the trip.”
With the letters unopened in his lap he sat in silent thought, profoundly troubled by the instant decision which this message demanded of him. At first glance nothing was simpler than to pack up and go. He was only a tourist in the valley with no intention of staying; but there was Berea! To go meant a violent end of their pleasant romance. To think of flight saddened him, and yet his better judgment was clearly on the side of going. “Much as I like her, much as I admire her, I cannot marry her. The simplest way is to frankly tell her so and go. It seems cowardly, but in the end she will be happier.”
His letters carried him back into his own world. One was from Will Halliday, who was going with Professor Holsman on an exploring trip up the Nile. “You must join us. Holsman has promised to take you on.” Another classmate wrote to know if he did not want to go into a land deal on the Gulf of Mexico. A girl asked: “Are you to be in New York this winter? I am. I’ve decided to go into this Suffrage Movement.” And so, one by one, the threads which bound him to Eastern city life re-spun their filaments. After all, this Colorado outing, even though it should last two years, would only be a vacation—hisreal life was in the cities of the East. Charming as Berea was, potent as she seemed, she was after all a fixed part of the mountain land, and not to be taken from it. At the moment marriage with her appeared absurd.
A knock at his door and the Supervisor’s voice gave him a keen shock. “Come in,” he called, springing to his feet with a thrill of dread, of alarm.
McFarlane entered slowly and shut the door behind him. His manner was serious, and his voice gravely gentle as he said: “I hope that telegram does not call you away?”
“It is from my father, asking me to meet him in Denver,” answered Norcross, with faltering breath. “He’s on his way to California. Won’t you sit down?”
The older man took a seat with quiet dignity. “Seems like a mighty fine chance, don’t it? I’ve always wanted to see the Coast. When do you plan for to pull out?”
Wayland was not deceived by the Supervisor’s casual tone; there was something ominously calm in his manner, something which expressed an almost dangerous interest in the subject.
“I haven’t decided to go at all. I’m still dazed by the suddenness of it. I didn’t know my father was planning this trip.”
“I see. Well, before you decide to go I’d liketo have a little talk with you. My daughter has told me part of what happened to you on the trail. I want to knowallof it. You’re young, but you’ve been out in the world, and you know what people can say about you and my girl.” His voice became level and menacing, as he added: “And I don’t intend to have her put in wrong on account of you.”
Norcross was quick to reply. “Nobody will dare accuse her of wrongdoing. She’s a noble girl. No one will dare to criticize her for what she could not prevent.”
“You don’t know the Beldens. My girl’s character will be on trial in every house in the county to-morrow. The Belden side of it will appear in the city papers. Sympathy will be with Clifford. Berrie will be made an issue by my enemies. They’ll get me through her.”
“Good Lord!” exclaimed Norcross, in sudden realization of the gravity of the case. “What beasts they are!”
“Moore’s gang will seize upon it and work it hard,” McFarlane went on, with calm insistence. “They want to bring the district forester down on me. This is a fine chance to badger me. They will make a great deal of my putting you on the roll. Our little camping trip is likely to prove a serious matter to us all.”
“Surely you don’t consider me at fault?”
Worried as he was, the father was just. “No, you’re not to blame—no one is to blame. It all dates back to the horses quitting camp; but you’ve got to stand pat now—for Berrie’s sake.”
“But what can I do? I’m at your service. What rôle shall I play? Tell me what to do, and I will do it.”
McFarlane was staggered, but he answered: “You can at least stay on the ground and help fight. This is no time to stampede.”
“You’re right. I’ll stay, and I’ll make any statement you see fit. I’ll do anything that will protect Berrie.”
McFarlane again looked him squarely in the eyes. “Is there a—an agreement between you?”
“Nothing formal—that is—I mean I admire her, and I told her—” He stopped, feeling himself on the verge of the irrevocable. “She’s a splendid girl,” he went on. “I like her exceedingly, but I’ve known her only a few weeks.”
McFarlane interrupted. “Girls are flighty critters,” he said, sadly. “I don’t know why she’s taken to you so terrible strong; but she has. She don’t seem to care what people say so long as they do not blame you; but if you should pull out you might just as well cut her heart to pieces—” His voice broke, and it was a long time before he could finish. “You’re not at fault, I know that, but if youcanstay on a little while and makeit an ounce or two easier for her and for her mother, I wish you’d do it.”
Wayland extended his hand impulsively. “Of course I’ll stay. I never really thought of leaving.” In the grip of McFarlane’s hand was something warm and tender.
He rose. “I’m terribly obliged,” he said; “but we mustn’t let her suspect for a minute that we’ve been discussing her. She hates being pitied or helped.”
“She shall not experience a moment’s uneasiness that I can prevent,” replied the youth; and at the moment he meant it.
Berrie could not be entirely deceived. She read in her father’s face a subtle change of line which she related to something Wayland had said. “Did he tell you what was in the telegram? Has he got to go away?” she asked, anxiously.
“Yes, he said it was from his father.”
“What does his father want of him?”
“He’s on his way to California and wants Wayland to go with him; but Wayland says he’s not going.”
A pang shot through Berrie’s heart. “He mustn’t go—he isn’t able to go,” she exclaimed, and her pain, her fear, came out in her sharpened, constricted tone. “I won’t let him go—till he’s well.”
Mrs. McFarlane gently interposed. “He’ll have to go, honey, if his father needs him.”
“Let his father come here.” She rose, and, going to his door, decisively knocked. “May I come in?” she demanded, rather than asked, before her mother could protest. “I must see you.”
Wayland opened the door, and she entered, leaving her parents facing each other in mute helplessness.
Mrs. McFarlane turned toward her husband with a face of despair. “She’s ours no longer, Joe. Our time of bereavement has come.”
He took her in his arms. “There, there, mother. Don’t cry. It can’t be helped. You cut loose from your parents and came to me in just the same way. Our daughter’s a grown woman, and must have her own life. All we can do is to defend her against the coyotes who are busy with her name.”
“But what ofhim, Joe; he don’t care for her as she does for him—can’t you see that?”
“He’ll do the right thing, mother; he told me he would. He knows how much depends on his staying here now, and he intends to do it.”
“But in the end, Joe, after this scandal is lived down, can he—will he—marry her? And if he marries her can they live together and be happy? His way of life is so different. He can’t content himself here, and she can’t fit inwhere he belongs. It all seems hopeless to me. Wouldn’t it be better for her to suffer for a little while now than to make a mistake that may last a lifetime?”